Truth
by GhostRelic
Summary: Of conclusions and consequences for Tywin Lannister and Sansa Stark. :::: Pride & Pack: Part VII (final) :::: 5/7
1. Tywin pt I

***Note:** This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence. Please be aware of your own sensibilities and proceed accordingly.*

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Tysan found his father standing in the lord's solar, next to the open doors of the balcony. He was reading a letter and, the boy was sure, listening to the Sunset Sea - to the song of her waves. Perhaps committing that soothing pulse to memory. His lord father was preparing to leave for the capital and would undoubtedly need such calm.

Upon his approach, Lord Tywin looked to acknowledge his son, yet remained impassive and went back to reading.

There was nothing hostile in his father's gesture, nothing ill said. Tysan well knew the message he was given and, unlike his brother, he usually had the patience to see it through. He simply, quietly walked to his place next to the desk, a spot that had been his for as long as he could remember, just before the chairs, where his shoulder could lean on the wood and he would not be in the way.

The desktop was as full as the little lion had ever seen it. There were piles of large parchments stamped with the Hand of the King's red seal and stacks of tiny missives - there must have been a hundred of them - with golden wax meaning they were from his lord father or his lady mother.

He let his mind wander to fill the time, and it was in his distraction that he found unease; the very reason he sought his father to begin with.

After a time, Lord Tywin folded and set aside the missive he was reading and swooped down, picking his son up in a quick and gentle motion. It prompted Tysan to squeal - wearing the same smile that made his mother beautiful.

The more serious son was troubled, and the equally serious lord knew precisely why.

Tysan's father did not smile a lot, though he knew when his eyes were happy. At that moment, those eyes that looked identical his own held a gleam much like his mother's when she would tell a story - a quiet excitement of sorts.

The old lion set his cub to stand on the great wooden chair; not quite eye level, but it would serve.

"Tell me, young lord," Tywin pulled back and made an effort to be severe, "where is a man's strength?"

He held his arms out slightly from his sides and stepped closer to his son, his mouth twitching as he watched the boy narrow his eyes to think.

Tysan was satisfied he had the answer and reached up, placing a small hand on his fathers' bicep.

"It's here and..."

His bright green eyes flitted around to find his next answer, finally resting their gaze, and the point of his finger, on the side of the room at the nook where his father's sword and armour had been polished, oiled, and set out for use.

"...and there!"

When he turned back to his father for the approval he was sure would be evident, he was disappointed to find the look that meant he was wrong; it was close to the look that meant he was behaving badly, but not all the way angry.

He pulled his hands back and scrunched his nose in frustration. "Where then?"

Tywin leaned down to his son, taking his hand in a gentle grip, he placed the hot little palm above his forehead, on his bald head. His son giggled. Even when he flicked him a stern look, Tysan giggled even more.

The old lion felt a wave of happiness ripple through him.

"What's in here?" Tywin applied a tiny amount of pressure to accentuate what he was referring to.

Tysan became solemn, trying to mimic his father.

"A... your mind," he smiled when the elder nodded and kept his hand where it lay on his father's head - it felt cooler than he thought it would be.

Tywin took his son's other hand and moved closer, crouching and bending, in order to place it in the center of his chest.

"What's in here?"

His face was beside his son's and he could not help but inhale deeply the distinct catch of childhood. Jaime and Cersei's was so long ago, his own longer still.

Again he pressed the small hand onto the place where he wanted his son's attention.

"Blood!"

Tysan's excitement lasted only a breath. He immediately knew his guess was wrong by the growl beside his face. He thought fast to correct himself.

"No..." This time when he spoke it was little more than air, because it was not nice to yell in his father's ear the first time. "Your _heart_." He whispered the two words like they were the greatest of secrets.

Tysan listened to the hum of approval and smiled wide - he liked knowing the right answers.

The old lion stood to full height once again, his son's hands falling away from where they were resting, and raked his fingers through the thick auburn hair atop the boy's head. It was a habitual action, something he simply did without thinking; a subtle affectionate gesture toward both Tysan and Rykar and, of course, towards their mother.

He focused on the child in front of him, standing tall on that chair, his shoulders back and rigid. What a proud boy he was. Quiet and calculating, yet clearly imposing in his nobility - a rarity in anyone, unheard of in a boy of six.

"While I am away, young lord, I will be entrusting you with an important task."

Tysan stood up taller and wore his serious-lion face. This was the first duty he had been assigned - and that it was assigned from his father made it that much more important, which meant it should be addressed as such.

"Yes, my lord," he nodded as well, for good measure.

His father narrowed his eyes, like he did when he was talking to his bannermen, like when he was ordering his soldiers.

Tysan held his breath.

"You are the oldest, Tysan, my heir and future lord of this castle. While I am away, it is your duty to protect your mother," the old lion's voice changed. Nothing hesitant, the nuance barely noticeable, save for someone close to him - like his son, "even from sadness."

The order seemed easy at first, then, as Tysan thought about it, it became somewhat daunting. It was what his father did, after all. It was what Ser Royene, Ser Sutter, Ser Lanning, and Ser Wellson had done since before he was even born - and _they _were the fiercest knights he had ever seen.

"Father," Tysan's face pinched in thought and worry, "I- I'm not... big enough... to protect her."

Lord Tywin's face softened as he regarded the little lion, and it took away the enormity and weight that was pushing his son into the ground; such an important task on such small shoulders.

"Where's your strength, young lord?"

It took only a moment before Tysan was pointing at the center of his own chest and the top of his head - and smiled a little bit when his father nodded in agreement.

"You don't need muscle to protect her, boy."

His father was right. He had heard mutters about how his lady mother was made of ice and snow and steel. And even quieter whispers, the kind of whispers made by those who truly think they are alone, about how his mother carried a certain strength greater than his father.

"Is mother the strongest girl you know?"

It was asked before the words were given permission to leave his mouth, and Tysan steadied himself for his lord father to change his face and talk to him in a way that made his belly feel sick.

Lord Tywin contemplated for a moment before looking at his son squarely; a subtle smile slid across his mouth and he could see the happiness start to resurface in the boy.

"She is the strongest _person_ I have ever met."

Tysan thought about that. Thought about how the words fit with each other, because his father sometimes did not say things plainly; and when he understood what he meant - that his mother was stronger than all the bannermen of the West, stronger than all his father's soldiers, even her own shields - the little lord smiled back.

The next moment Tysan was being lifted down from his perch. He thought his father was asking him to leave, but before he could turn, the old lion looked down at him, extending his hand.

It took a heartbeat or two before Tysan understood what his father wanted. He did not much hold his hand inside the castle; only when he took Rykar and him outside - to Lannisport, or a closer castle, to a tourney, or the like. And even then they were mostly in the care of their mother, or knights, or nurses. However, when they were alone, when his father would walk them along the sea, or show them the stables, or walk the piers, he would take a hand of each of them.

Sometimes he held too tight though, like he and his brother would accidentally fly away.

Whatever the reason this time, Tysan decided it did not matter - he grabbed his father's hand, looked up at him, and smiled once more.

They did not walk far, only across the room to the heavy and locked door that was sunken behind a long tapestry depicting lions jumping at birds in the sky and chasing stags and wolves and… and… well… everything.

Tysan liked that dark little space, it was a good place to think. Consequently, it also meant that sometimes he heard things. And it was hard in those instances to keep it to himself - though he did, as he knew his father and mother would not be happy he had hidden where he should not have and listened to things not intended for his ears.

Tysan's thoughts were interrupted by his father letting go of his hand and the eventual sound of the locks, the ones that made the door heavy, rattling and being worked open. He had never been through the door - he had never seen it open - and he found himself excited by the adventure.

Lord Tywin growled as he pushed the door open with his shoulder, and addressed his son in the same manner.

"Stay here."

His father's boots made soft clicking sounds as he walked away.

All sound was forgotten when his lord father heaved apart great curtains opposite the entrance. They were larger than the tapestry that blocked the recessed doorway and dark red. The windows they covered were equally large and let in so much sunlight, Tysan had to raise his hand to shade his eyes from the stabbing rays of warmth.

"Come."

It was an automatic response to his father's command that his legs moved, and all of a sudden Tysan was in a smaller room with a large table on one side and another heavy-looking door on the other.

"This room will be yours one day," Tywin said as he approached the inner door.

Tysan noticed the hefty steel key in his father's hand, and also noticed the five keyholes on the heavy door - four at each point of a diamond, and one in the very middle.

Looking over his shoulder at his wide-eyed child, Tywin beckoned him with an arch of his brow and a curl of his finger.

"On what side is this lock, Tysan?"

His father was pointing, and the little lion held out both of his hands, palms down, and made L's with each thumb and forefinger. It was the way his mother taught him to tell right from left, one was backwards, the other was his left hand.

"Left, my lord."

"And this one?"

"The bottom."

His father did not ask after that, merely pointed to each inset lock he wanted named.

"Top... Center... Right."

Lord Tywin then abruptly stepped back and away from the door. Tysan looked to him, shuffling around in his confusion; it did not help when his father held out the steel key to him. Wrapping his small hand around it, he was not surprised that it had the weight he predicted.

"I want you to open this door."

Already facing the door again, the boy's tone was edged in wonder, "Where... Which one do I start with?"

"Lions bound to Casterly Rock."

It was all that was said, and Tysan scrunched his face up again, more so, into a child's version of incredulousness. However, when he looked to his father, he saw a stern look and a raised brow.

_A puzzle!_

Tysan thought hard, turning back to his challenge.

_Lions bound to Casterly Rock._

_Where is Casterly Rock? West._

_But west isn't one of the directions he asked for… left, then bottom, then top…_

The little lion jumped in his excitement, his father scoffed at him – but it was not an ugly sound.

_Lions… Left._

Tysan slid the key into the left lock and had to use both hands to turn it. It took an anchoring adjustment of his feet and the best growl he could make before the key budged and made a satisfying _thunk_ as it turned.

Removing the key, he positioned it at the lowest one.

_Bound… Bottom._

Again he turned the key, grunting at it in the process, then moved on to the next.

_To… Top._

He was on his toes, stretching to turn the key, his knuckles clenched white on each hand, on either side of the key's end-curve, until he felt a large warm palm wrap around them - giving the leverage needed to make the turn, then it was gone.

_Casterly… Center._

_Rock… Right._

At the sound of the final lock giving, Tywin waited for his son to remove the key, took his empty hand, placed it on the handle with his own just above, and pulled.

The inside of the room made Tysan gush out his breath. It was large and dark, and when his father took a lamp inside, he was stunned by the stacks of gold and jewels and parchment and boxes… He wondered if that was where all the riches of the Rock were stored... It was amazing.

"Tysan, go stand at the table."

It took a moment or nine before his father's voice made sense, and another twelve before his feet unstuck from the floor and allowed him to move.

He could hear his father moving things in the treasure room, and it felt like forever before he came out again. And, strangely, what he held wasn't so much impressive as it was interesting.

It was a wooden box; sturdy and tall. Its height more than that of both he and his brother together, Tysan thought, and about as wide as himself at the shoulders.

His father laid the interesting box flat on the table, the ends of it jutting past the edges.

Lord Tywin once again scooped up his son at the pits of his arms, this time sitting him on the edge of the table top.

Tysan was glad of it, because he was now high enough to view whatever lived inside the long heavy box.

The little lord could clearly see wavy lines of gold sunk into the dark wood, and gold fittings keeping it closed. Though there were no lions on it - and _that _notable discovery caused Tysan's mouth to twitch at the corner in equal parts anticipation and suspicion. He watched as his father pressed his thumbs into two of those fittings and beamed in excitement when he heard the sound of the mystery unlocking.

Tywin swung open the long hinged top of the box, making sure to watch his son as he did so.

He could not speak. Tysan sat blinking at the contents, trying to remember to breathe.

It was the biggest sword he had ever seen. And it was beautiful.

The hilt and pommel had lions - no, that wasn't right - they had _wolves _on them. Like the sigil of his mother's house. Wolves carved into the thick cross-metal and wolves' heads coming to life from the each end of the hilt.

Tysan leaned down to look at the massive blade itself.

It was the width of both his hands - _together! _- and dark grey, like thunder. Up close, there were marks and swishes inside the metal. The little lion squinted one way and saw faces, then tilted his head another way and saw animals. It reminded him of the liquid rainbow he had seen in the run-off water at the laundry, but _this_ was in steel.

And, as with most any child, Tysan made a reach for the object that held his curiosity. A reach that was mesmerized and unthinking.

A reach that was ended before it began, when his father's hand stopped him.

"This is the deadliest weapon you will most likely ever see. It holds its edge without the need to be sharpened, and it can cut through most plate..."

The deep voice droned on for a while, and when he looked toward the source, Tysan knew he was being told something important.

"_This_. This is what is what you will give your mother if she's sad, and I'm not here. It will help her."

Tysan considered for a moment, then asked the most obvious question.

"What if she's not sad?"

"Then it will be given to Rykar the day he becomes Lord in the North. This is the great sword of the Stark family, your mother's family, and it will go to Winterfell with him."

Another consideration, another _obvious _question.

"Will I have one?"

"No. The Lannisters once had a great sword called Brightroar. Nevertheless, it has been lost for generations."

"So... Rykar will have one... and I won't?"

Tywin looked at his son, watched him consider what was fair and what he wanted. The eldest was never the one to act rash or unplanned; he sought the problem openly and worked toward solutions.

"Tysan, look at me. No, not at the wall behind me, _at_ me. Good. Tysan, there is enough steel here to make two swords. A twin set. One for both you and your brother. The choice is yours."

Tysan's mouth gaped like the fish that splashed around in the tidal pools Jaime showed them in the lowest caverns beneath the castle. However, his mind was moving at the ferocious pace of any six year old.

_The sword is incredible, and it's unfair that Rykar gets to keep it and I get nothing. _

_But it's also the thing that I'm supposed to give mother if she's sad and father isn't here._

_But she'd be happy if there were two of them, wouldn't she?_

_But father said the sword belonged to the Starks, the North. So Rykar would only get to use it, not keep it, not really._

_And mother says the North remembers - surely it remembers such a wonderful sword._

Tysan blinked at his father and smiled lamely; crushed as only a boy could be at such a sacrifice.

"No, my lord," he sighed long and loud, "it should stay put together."

Tywin found himself biting down with excruciating effort so as not to fully roar in laughter. His son was so much his mother in that moment, _unnecessary dramatics_. He also knew what it was like to have decisions mocked at that age, especially by one's father; he would not do that to the boy.

Instead he nodded at Tysan in the same way he did to inform him of his appreciation in general.

It seemed enough. His own eyes peered up at him, and the little lion nodded back.

Lord Tywin returned his mother's, _not his brother's…not yet_, sword and reversed the locking pattern to secure the inner door.

With a gentle, firm hand on his head, Tywin moved his son through the heavy door leading back out to the solar. And after locking the door, once more rested his fingertips on Tysan's crown and lead him to the desk.

When they stopped at its side, the warmth in his hair left too, but the old lion did not move. Looking up, Tysan saw a tightly woven gold chain dangling from his father's hand. He did not have it before, and must have picked it out the treasure room.

The Great Lion threaded the intricately woven finery through the curled end of the heavy steel key and, without a word or any indication of intent, slipped the chain over the head of his heir.

"You know your duty," Lord Tywin said and abruptly turned to take his seat behind the desk.

The boy, the Red Lion, as the bannermen of the West liked to call him, could only think to squeeze his fingers around the cold metal and nod dumbly at the retreating back of his father.

Tysan observed from where he stood, his father sitting in his great chair. Watched him get comfortable and waited as he always waited for _his _turn to sit.

Tywin's mouth curled minutely at the edges when he finally settled and leaned back. It was a silent cue his sons knew to mean they were welcome to join him.

And without hesitation, Tysan gripped the arm of the chair and a handful of his father's doublet to help pull him up. It had been a long time since his lord father assisted either he or Rykar in their climb, telling them that if they wanted to sit with him, they had to figure out how to achieve it on their own.

Tysan had learned to climb carefully after the first time he stepped somewhere that made his father angry enough to lift him with one hand and order him to leave. But this climb was easier, his arms were stronger now, his legs were longer too.

The little lion fit into the pocket of space at his father's side like it was built for him.

Sitting high on Tywin's thigh, his son would always press himself just under his arm, and just enough out of the way, that he still had use of it and was unimpeded in doing his work.

He liked spending time with his father, and Tysan knew how to be close without bothering; to work _with _his lord father, not against him - the latter of which always meant being sent away. This time, though, as he curled himself into the large warm torso he so much loved, the boy could not hold his tongue.

Or his fear.

"You'll come home after..." Young Tysan Lannister could feel himself start to shake and fought the scrapes in his throat and the water in his eyes with every bit of lion and wolf that made him. "...After you kill the dragons, right?"

He could not look up. He did not want to see his father's disappointment at the emotion that ate him up, or the anger at him knowing about the dragons when he shouldn't, so he just clung tighter - if only to fight the inevitable: that Lord Tywin would instruct him to leave.

The boy felt his father shift, the arm he was situated under moved, and he was anticipating this was when it would pluck him off and tell him, _If you're going to be a nuisance, you'll do it elsewhere_.

But his lord father was leaving soon for the capital, to fight, and Tysan did not want let go just yet. He would fight, as well. He would beg Lord Tywin to let him stay; he would promise to stop bothering and talking... he'd _promise_!

He fisted more of the black doublet's fabric to anchor him against the strong arms and strong hands about to pry him away. However, in this instance, those strong arms and strong hands pulled him in closer, centering him.

Tysan was at such a loss at the gesture, that the first sob to wrench out of him was as much a surprise as it was a relief.

"Right?" he wept into his father's chest.

When there was no answer, he gathered all the voice a boy needed to better reiterate a question.

"You'll come home, _right_?!" it came out as a screeching, pitiful wail.

Once again the son's query went unanswered - vocally; rather, those strong arms and hands held onto him tighter, fiercer. Tysan could feel his father breathing heavier and quicker, just like he was, and it scared him.

"_Right_?!"

He bawled, beseeching an answer of the man he clawed himself into; the man who had lifted and tucked the scared little boy high on his chest and under his chin. The lion who wrapped himself around his cub in order to protect him from the monsters that at one time only lived as pictures in books.

He could not stop crying. His father was not angry, so he abandoned the will to even try and end his tears.

Folded in on himself, his knees near his forehead, Tysan was getting hot and sweaty, although he did not want to move. He didn't want anything in fact - a duty, a key, a room full of gold, or even a castle - he only wanted his father.

Wave after wave of terrible sadness and the agony of fear tore through his little frame.

Yet he was held together... with strong arms and strong hands.

"..._right_?" the cub whimpered, his tide of emotions at last ebbing enough for the word to escape.

Still, no answer was granted.

Tysan wanted to feel frustrated by the silence, but he was moving now and it was too distracting to concentrate on both.

Curled up into the nest of his father's chest and arms, the little lion barely distinguished the subtle swaying movement the body around him was providing. His lungs no longer hurt for air, they took deeper and deeper breathes, his eyes no longer leaked out tears; they were heavy though - waterlogged, most like.

He felt his father press his mouth to the top of his head and thought it strange, because he only did that at bedtime, and even then it occurred less than sometimes. And as much as that act was distracting, it was what was happening along with it that both lulled and bewildered him.

Lord Tywin was purring nonsense while rocking his son.

His mother hummed, never his father. It didn't matter; however, it took away the fear. He could see it, the panic and dread, pulling back from where it had been dwelling in his mind, behind his eyes.

It was getting smaller because the humming was chasing it away. The Great Lion was chasing it away.

His muscles, and the ability to keep himself awake, were well spent; the room began to dim, and Tysan was adrift in the comfort of his father's affection.

When the black of sleep consumed him, so did the contentment that a man who could scare off nightmares could scare off anything.

_Anything_.

Even dragons... and come home.

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The moment Tywin Lannister knew he had been betrayed was the moment he watched Ser Loras Tyrell of the Kingsguard blindside his Lord Commander. Ser Jaime was knocked so viciously to the ground, at such an unexpected angle, he lost consciousness almost immediately.

There was no pause in Lord Tywin. He did not hesitate to bellow his unflinching command to decimate anyone wearing sigils and colors of the Reach. His own blade took only a heartbeat to lodge itself in the neck of the man who, for years, swore himself an ally.

Lord Mace Tyrell wore his armour as decoration, and his son's hasty move to expose their treachery served only to expose his own folly - being thrown into combat at the shoulder of a proven warrior, not a mantelpiece.

The other lord was on his knees, choking on blood as Tywin moved on to the next.

_Let him die slowly, _his malicious thoughts rang, _let him die shitting himself_.

Tywin's focus then turned to the mere babe who thought to harm his son. He waded through leather-clad savages and plate-clad soldiers to meet his target, his blade acting as an extension of himself every step of the way.

He was built for blood and the taking of lives; his frame long and lean, his arms like the cracking of a whip.

He had the boy in height; and while Tyrell's youth garnered him speed, it was no match for the experience of anticipation. Tywin gave him not one fraction of ease or rhythm; Ser Loras leaned back to gather his bearings, and determine a better strategy; the old lion followed him there. And kept going.

Lord Tywin practically fell inside the reach of his opponent, it was an error associated purely with youth and ignorance. And once there, the Lion of Lannister unbridled his fury. He struck the pretty young man, not with his blade, but with his fist - his steel-wrapped fist.

The first two strikes of his gauntlet dislodged Tyrell's helm. The next half dozen found them on the ground. What transpired after was a haze of rage, a mist of blood, and the soul-thrumming crack and give of the other man's skull.

The old lion's blood was thick like honey, crawling its way through his veins, pounding in his ears. It was the only thing he could hear when he made his way to Jaime.

His first-born son was not dead. The wound on his head, where it had met the smooth cobbled stone of the entranceway, was bleeding as those wounds were apt to. Nothing worse as far as he could discern.

But it was when he made the initial heave to pull his son to safety that he felt the cold press of steel wormed under the edge of his helm, at his own neck.

"I'll ask only once for you to yield, my lord. The battle is over. You've lost."

Tywin knew the voice. A deep steady cadence.

_Barristan the Bold. Barristan the Brave. _Call him what you will, the knight was an efficient killer regardless of fanciful monikers.

Tywin stood slowly, his eyes fixed on the man with his life dangling at the tip of a sword.

"I won't leave my son to the whims of the primitive." His voice was calm, yet firm, his blade at a down angle as a sign of entreaty, but not given over - he had certainly not surrendered.

Ser Barristan looked at him with a kind of understanding the old lion could only respect.

"The Lord Commander will be attended to as his station deserves. You have my word, Lord Tywin."

Moments stretched as the two men simply regarded one another. It was not a battle so much as it was a test - of loyalty for the most part - Tywin had known this man longer than most, and it was a silent question to the knight whether or not he would afford him an escape - or at least the opportunity to try for one, or if he would suckle the vows pledged to yet another regent. This time a queen he followed home.

Slight pressure on the blade at his neck, digging a little deeper, and the hot trickle he now felt rolling under his armour was Ser Barristan's equally wordless answer.

"Will he die all the same?" Tywin's voice was as hard and cold as the steel that marked him.

The courteous knight did not so much as blink at such a bald question.

"That's not for me to predict, nor decide, my lord."

Live to see another day or die where he stood. That was the choice presented to the lion, but his arrogance only allowed for the immediate considerations of a man set to scheme and adjust his place in the world that was coming apart around him.

Without looking away, Tywin ever so slowly lifted his own sword and pivoted the hilt in his hand to offer the pommel to the knight who held him at bay.

Seemingly simultaneously, his proffered weapon and the one poised to kill him were removed. The Great Lion also felt something shift inside him; something ominous, something that devoured his earlier conceit. A black, oily thing that settled in the pit of his stomach.

He _knew_ the fight would be at the castle; that all of King's Landing would burn before flame would dare lick that ancestral home. They had the advantage, they let the Targaryen whore fight her way from the shores, uphill, through the city, and further to the entry of the keep.

The gamble paid dividends, the fiery beasts came nowhere near the castle, sparing the men waiting. Though, what he had not known was that an even more dangerous animal lived within his ranks - a pang of uneasy revelation sent his thoughts toward the fields of Northmen, and men from the Riverlands that rallied for their king, who were under the command of Lord Randyll Tarly.

It was an acknowledgement that carried vaguely to the welfare of his daughter, more of the child she had borne the man.

He then thought of home.

_Home_.

_Sansa_.

The mass of greasy unease roiled where it lay at the core of him.

_Patience_.

Patience would allot him answers.

Looking to survey the scene around him, he could see the unsurely mix of barbarians, sell swords, and those wearing the sigil of Highgarden, quickly dispatching any and all in Lannister garb.

"Come with me, my lord."

It was a command from one man to another; respectful, tactful, kind even - though a command nonetheless. And with it, in that very space of time, Lord Tywin Lannister conceded his own was at an imminent end.

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_Eternal gratitude and respect to my fantastic betas: dealbreaker19 and Ice-Eagle Y'siri_

_(any mistakes are mine alone - I tend to fiddle and tweak, up to posting)_


	2. Tywin pt IIa

***Note:** This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence. Please be aware of your own sensibilities and proceed accordingly.*

****Additional Note (please read):** While this series is no stranger to violence in any capacity, the following two chapters delve into the culmination of said torment in respect to the man who ultimately wrought the previous connotations (Tywin Lannister).

I feel I must warn you, the reader, as per my beta, (who has no triggers, and no aversion to the level of detail I provide):

_"Woman, it's rough stuff."_

_"...you better put a billion warnings on this one."_

It's not my habit to write torture porn. The acts described in these two chapters (and in prior chapters), are not there for the sake of something gory, they are a testament to the adage _reaping what one sows_, and are acts that I feel - in these instances - a character like Tywin Lannister would only expect.

If you have any sort of trepidation, I thoroughly encourage you to skim/avoid the second part of Tywin pt IIa, and the later portion of the first part of Tywin pt IIb. You will not miss out on the encompassing storyline, I assure you, just the harder details.

Regards,

Relic

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"They've not yet found Genna."

Ser Kevan huddled close to talk to his brother. Not that he had any space to leave between them, he did so merely for the privacy he was used to ensuring.

They had been locked in what Kevan could lightheartedly guess was a storage room of some sort. Not in a cell, black or otherwise, nothing underground. The room was long enough, from door to wall, for each of them to lie down; one man's head at the door, the other's at the wall - their shins and feet clashing in the middle. However to sit width-wise would see difficulty in properly stretching one's legs.

The only concession to the cramped quarters was the series of small slit windows. There was no glass, just open air. And although they were well above a height to reach or see from, they at least afforded the brothers a concept of time - in days and hours... and now the turn of a moon.

Tywin had known immediately they were close to the throne room based on the rise and set of the sun, as well as the constant footfalls they heard outside their door.

"Sansa won't allow her to be found."

The old lion sounded weary, though not yet broken.

Both he and Kevan had been dragged daily to either the throne room or the map room, and given audience with the new queen and her rats. The imp once again wore the chain of the Hand and, ironically, took his place as the biggest rat of them all.

Tywin had only seen Tyrion once, right after the fall of the capital, but it was enough to know his wife and their children would live. For as much as he hated his father, the Imp was undeniably in debt to Sansa. It was a life debt. The value of which was on par, and then some.

The Great Lion peered at his companion - at least he was held with his brother which was some comfort.

"I can only pity the North if that's where she's sent her. Ty, can you imagine our Genna amongst the savages?"

Tywin scoffed, then sobered.

"I can imagine her protecting her children by any means possible - from both a mad dragon-queen bent on Lannister blood, and a mad feral-woman bent on Frey blood."

Kevan nodded his solemn agreement, then looked away from his brother; studying his hands, his face etched with whatever it was that was troubling him.

The older Lannister could only wait, he knew if pressed, the younger would snap shut and leave him to wonder.

It was some minutes before the view of his hands became monotonous to Kevan.

"Tywin, Sansa fought to have my family spared."

It was not what he was expecting, Tywin's gut instantly clenched.

"At what cost?"

"I.. I don't know."

"Who told you?"

"It was the Imp -"

"You've seen him recently, then?" Tywin cut in.

"No. It was… a raven, my lord."

His gut now curdled.

"From _where_ did the raven come?"

There was nothing but the sound of steps muffled by the door, and a slight whistle of the wind angling through their slivers of windows.

"_Kevan_…"

Tywin very rarely took a tone of warning with his brother, his right hand. The last time he could remember doing so was just after the death of his first wife.

"Where's the _fucking Imp_, Kevan?"

Clearing this throat, the younger spoke quietly, "At the Rock, my lord."

"Have they... It's fallen?" Tywin was unaware his voice had pitched and cracked.

Kevan shook his head slightly, speaking to save his lord anxiousness, "Not from what I gather - the missives give the impression of treating. You shouldn't worry, Ty-"

"_Do not_ presume to tell me how I should think, _brother_," the old lion's eyes flashed with what Kevan knew was fury, "You know just as well as I do how this ends."

"I'm _not_ presuming, Tywin, I hold no illusions. _Till my dying breath_, remember?"

Kevan looked at his brother, and for the first time in his life, he felt cold in his shadow. Too much was at stake to risk sabotage, unbeknownst or not, fueled by the best of intentions or not.

"She is negotiating, they are listening. _Do not_ interfere," the younger was on the verge of anger, his voice deadly - arching a little louder as he progressed, "I will be damned if I walk to whatever misery is to end my life suspect of the welfare of my family."

Tywin looked at his brother long and intense. Not moving, not talking, his face a mask of nothing.

Until he laughed.

The sound was not disparaging, nor was it grand; it was uncharacteristically pleasant, with a hint of approval.

Kevan eyed him cautiously; he had never seen this raving man before. No… not raving per se… not the man per se - it was their entire reality that was rather absurd.

"Arsehole," breathed the younger, then joined the nonsensical mirth that must only come to those living their last days.

Tywin murmured softly, tellingly at the end of his joy, "She will see them safe, Kevan."

"I'm not the one doubting her." It could have been accusatory, but it wasn't. "She's too valuable, Ty. Why did _you _want her?"

"She was the key."

"She still is, my lord," Kevan said gently.

There was a lull amidst them then, something pensive.

"And why, my brother, did you keep her?"

With the question came a look that was carefully cunning. A look that was rare in the younger Lannister; one used only when effectively pulling truths - even from his siblings.

It took a moment for Tywin to collect his thoughts. His brother knew him better than all but Sansa. He also knew the answer to his own question, and Tywin had to consider exactly how to convey that type of annoyance in words.

"Arsehole."

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It was as yet another day was lapsing into yet another night that Tywin was dragged from his closet-cum-cell.

The very act, that he was not walked but overpowered and yanked down a corridor, told him this would be no conventional interrogation.

He was pulled through the empty throne room, to one of the smaller meeting rooms behind the dais. And when he saw it occupied by only the queen and her savages, his suspicion was confirmed.

But the old lion was only allotted a moment to spare any estimation of what was to come, when a commotion tore the collective tension to ribbons.

Randyll Tarly marched his way to the queen; to look at her Tywin knew this appointment was demanded and unexpected.

"Lord Tarl-"

Queen Daenerys broke off her own words when the lord in question smoothly bowed to a knee and all but flung a crumpled cloak at her feet.

She looked confused as two of her horse-guards leaned in poke whatever the gift was with the tip of their curved blade.

With a muttering of primitive language, one of the guards kneeled, pulling at the cloak to find an end. And from there, tugged at the expanse of material in order to find the hidden prize.

Tywin knew exactly what had been presented. The chilling quench that seized his spine dissipated only when he saw that the size of the clump was nowhere near his heed.

Although with that deduction, he also knew the contents.

A final flip of fabric allowed a tiny curled fist to drop into view. It was bloodied. As was the arm it was attached to.

There was no noise from the queen, no gasp of horror or even jubilation. She merely crouched to the small body and pushed aside enough of the cloak to see the face of the child.

"Your own?"

The inquiry was made in the direction of the dead babe. Taking another heartbeat of contemplation prior to standing and addressing her glower at Lord Tarly, the queen motioned for him to stand as well.

"I didn't want it. What good was a whore's daughter to me?" Tarly grouched, finally at full height.

"That daughter was _yours_ also, my lord."

The queen spoke carefully, yet it was easy to see the rage simmering beneath her veneer.

"And still of no use to me... other than a sign of my fealty, Your Grace."

"You chose the same tact the Lannisters did to prove themselves loyal to the usurper. Did you think this would appease me?"

For a moment the gruff lord's eyes went wild, darting here and there, unfocused and looking for a way out; looking for something completely unnatural to the man: how to exist in the same room with a woman who had greater footing.

"I didn't kill the mother, like I ought should have, I left her for you."

"Yes Lord Tarly, and she will be tried for the wrongs she has perpetrated. Tell me, of what guilt was a babe of three found?"

"A daughter is of no use-"

"Much the same as those under my rule who think to act recklessly, carelessly, and tell me it is in my name that they blunder - that it is for my benefit. My lord, it is _you _who is of no use to _me_."

The silver-haired queen spoke in High Valyrian to one of her Unsullied, and though Tywin was unaccustomed to the language conversationally, he could pick out the general mood of her command. His face did not move, but his eyes squinted slightly at the edges as they would if he smirked.

_Good riddance_, he thought.

As a clutch of spear-carrying men descended toward Lord Randyll; Tywin watched the man pale. Tarly was shaded an ugly grey-to-green, and it was with great satisfaction the old lion witnessed the turnabout of such a traitor.

The great commander from the Reach put up little fight; was sent to the ground with two strikes from the murderous end of such a long weapon. Two strikes that were hardly seen - like lunges from a viper - but could only have severed tendons at the backs of the Tarly's knees based on the angle of the strike and the overall result.

The useless lord was dragged away cursing, leaving only the bloody bundle wrapped in a green and gold cloak between Lord Tywin and Queen Daenerys.

The lion thought nothing of the babe. Truly, it was not his concern. He could see his wife's disapproving face in his mind; _that's your blood_, she would say; _that's your family_, she would say. And though it was truth, Sansa's conscience held absolutely no sway in his conviction that _this _child simply did not matter.

The Targaryen queen turned then to speak to one of her Dothraki savages. The comment was brief, and Tywin again found himself watching the action directly in front of him. The half-bared brute bent to the bundle and, with such careful grace that it genuinely took the old lion aback, gently gathered his precious charge and left the room.

"Your granddaughter," Daenerys said flatly.

And much like every other time Lord Tywin had been brought before her, he spoke not a single word to reply or defend or simply converse.

His silence was infuriating her; it was a comfortable advantage.

She wanted nothing of governmental secrets or measures of security that may or may not hinder her reign; she wanted emotional reasoning as to the man he was - in relation to her father, and her family; in relation to his betrayal of them, as well.

His reasons were his alone, and the dirt-queen would obtain neither his rationale nor his justification. The simplest truth was that the events requiring such decisions were made because they were the correct action for the realm at the time, and if this so-called regent could see nothing but a personal slight - then she was as ineffectual a waste as the rest of her family.

"Violence should be saved for those deserving," the queen added absently, sadly, before her demeanour became stiff once again.

It was in her eyes. Tywin spotted it: her father. Not Aerys as a young man; no, this was the look of the Scab King - warped and delusional.

Without further word or warning, the old lion was shoved toward a pillar carved from what looked to be a solid slab of stone. It had two ornate sconces, one several hands above his head, the other mirrored on the opposite side of the column.

His hands were held firm as he felt his tunic being rucked out his breeches and up over his head.

He refused to let it go; refused to let them separate the garment from contact with his skin - not wholly. It stayed bunched on his arms, and it seemed the barbarians did not care, they simply set to pushing it out of the way on his forearms and binding great lengths of leather strapping there instead.

Each of his arms were tied then pulled by their leads, made to embrace the girth of the column then wrenched upward as the ends were tied off to the sconce on the other side.

In the position he had been drawn and stretched into, Tywin knew he was to be fucked or flogged - or both. Neither was a tempting prospect. Though when the laces at his groin were yanked apart, and his breeches pulled down his legs, he figured the question was answered. More so when a coil of leather, this one not merely a strap, looped around his neck and tightened.

The lion could feel the blood pooling in his face, reddening it in his effort to breath around the asphyxiation; and though his body heated as his muscles tensed, Tywin could easily sense the warmth of someone standing behind him.

He could smell him; all sweat, and horse, and shit, and leather. _The fucking savage_.

With a sharp tug on the leather noose, the old lion's head snapped back and collided with the shoulder of a large beast. At the same time, he was pressed bodily into the unforgiving pillar and experienced a blunt, hurtful nudge at the tight ring of his arse.

Whether it was a cock or fingers that worked to enter him, it made no matter, the event was vile.

Over the heavy grunts at his ear and the dry, arduous prods at his backside causing himself to squawk out his pain, he could hear the formidable roar of the queen.

She was palpably furious, and Tywin thought it was because it was taking so long to rape him. But when his lungs were allowed air once again, the crush on his body was lifted, and the cur at his back stepped away laughing, he knew _that _type of wretchedness would not be endured… at least in not her presence.

Although, once that particular offense had been reprimanded the queen changed again, speaking in the barbarians tongue. It was not long before she laughed in the same manner the brutish voice did only moments before. And that, the lion could freely admit, was terrifying.

The young queen now sounded appallingly eager. So bent in her hate, Tywin could hardly anticipate her angle.

But there was one.

Vengeance, perhaps.

It was not intuition that provided the summation, but common sense.

In a rebellion that found her kin in the minority, the easiest path in the aftermath would be to focus on the loudest songs and the grandest of stories. Yet to thoroughly hinge vengeance on that very principle would see this Targaryen queen eradicate almost every name in Westeros.

And to _truly _seek justice for the wrongs she has interpreted, the full bloom of vengeance would require her to follow every branch to its eventual root - where her own dragon blood would have to be counted amongst that which should be spilled.

Convenience, most likely-

He heard the tightly braided leather brutally snap the air apart before he felt it land.

The impact was a thick line of burning pain, starting at his shoulder and ending halfway down his back. This was not corporal flagellation, he realized, this was an outright whipping. This was not performed with knout or a scourge, but with a stock whip, and he had no time to prepare himself for the agony.

The blazing hurt caught his breath; snatched it away so that he had to chase it to get it back.

But just as he regained it, the next lash struck the opposite side with a uniform fury.

He would _not _give her what she wanted. He would eat the hurt and let the cunt stew in her frustration.

The next strike made him growl.

The fourth came with a trickle of wet, thicker than sweat and hotter than tears. He was not a horse and it was only a matter of time before his hide was split.

Sagging his head at the shoulders, he rooted for comfort in the tunic he held so dear.

By the tenth he was frothing through his teeth. His skin was hot, his muscles shivering, and the blood was flowing freely down his arse and the backs of his thighs. He pulled hard on his restraints just to feel something else other than the skin on his back rise and bubble.

Six and ten was when the numbness took hold; he was only aware of flesh tugging to shreds and the sloppy sound of leather connecting with the meat underneath.

Lord Tywin lost count after two and twenty.

He was nearing the threshold to give in. To give this mad queen her due - his fear and anguish.

The lion tried to gather air so he could create a voice, a whimper, _anything_, but was distracted.

His vision swayed with streaks of light and dots of colour, and through the soup he could see her - his wife, his wolf. But she was not smiling to sooth his aches, nor whispering words to take him away from the monstrous rhythm played out on his body.

The vision of her was all but a child, and, like him, she was stripped bare, held firm, and meeting the ruthless swing and abuse of a weapon built to wound.

He was suffering the same torment Sansa had, and he wondered with a horrible clarity how those blows had marked her though never broke her completely.

A cool blanket resolve enveloped him, then. His lady wife rescued the _Great-fucking-Lion_ from the brink by way of her own suffering.

How _dare _he consider defeat when a mere girl endured so much for so long. How _dare _he think to taint her strength with his weakness.

_How. Dare. He_.

Tywin would endure. Tywin would come back, ever resilient.

Even though his lips were bloodied from biting back the pain, his mouth and chin slick with drool and vomit, the _Great-fucking-Lion_ forced his head to the side and his bleary eyes to focus on the cunt-queen standing and observing.

He smirked at her.

With the barest curl of his lip, he told her she was nothing more than entertainment to him. Insignificant and a failure.

The lion won. The dragon had been bested at her own game.

The rhythm halted then and Tywin was cut loose.

He was no match for gravity, and slumped ungracefully to the cool marble floor. That soothing repose lasted only a beat before he was gripped tight and held upright by malicious hands on his upper arms; yanked yet again to his feet.

But he could not find them.

His legs were leagues away, and when he tried to place them under him, his tread slipped and smeared on that gloriously cold marble floor - made soapy by his own blood and sweat and bile.

Movement was a blur. His breeches remained dropped, baring him to the ankles, adding to his many trips and stumbles. However, his only concern was the tunic bunched in front of him, still wore at his forearms. He hugged it to his chest like a babe with a toy, unaware of much else, until recognition wafted through the fog of pain.

The savages were dragging him up the steps of the dais if the throne room, to the throne itself. To that ugly iron chair where blood and rust were indistinguishable and the power it provided was perverse.

He was spun to view out on the hall he had known for more years than this new queen had been alive.

The lion was tired. His lungs grunted in effort, his eyes were heavy, and all he wanted was to sleep and see her; _his _queen.

Impact was sudden, and it wrenched a muffled curse from his throat.

They threw him into that sharp, tarnished seat, mostly naked and severely lacerated.

He hardly felt those new cuts before he welcomed the dark.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_It is the sound of sparring that draws his interest. It is the sound of his children shouting in excitement that settles whatever debate is in him to follow those noises._

_The training grounds are becoming clearer ahead of him, like out of the morning mist that gathers and rolls inland from the calmer shores of the sea. The noises are getting louder and Tywin feels a sense of anticipation. Like the children, but quieter._

_In the tunnel leading to giggling boys and skillful knights, he sees a silhouette leaning against the hewn wall - far enough in the shadows to remain unnoticed; just enough forward to see what drew also him there._

_She is unmistakable, even in the dark. Her hair is down and the plait reaches just above her arse. For a man used to the complications of the South, it's when his wife further simplifies the mundane that he is most taken._

_He can see how Sansa has one arm wrapped around her, just under her breasts, and the other is bent at the elbow, her hand coming to rest at the side of her neck. She is completely enthralled with the activities in front of her and, Tywin thinks, he could have galloped past her without even an acknowledgement._

_The lion comes to pause a few paces behind her, and from this new angle he can see his wolf tense and relax with every clang and rasp of steel connecting. _

_If he were the man he had been two years prior, his jealousy would have sparked and kindled at the notion of his wife viewing two young knights battle - regardless of the precious company they were entertaining. He would have welcomed the burn of hate in his lungs and the continually sought edge of relief in Sansa's reassurances. _

_His focus is brought back to the sparring in front of him, and the two boys completely enthralled - for two completely different reasons. _

_The combat is a slew of litany, of thrusts and parries, of taunts and carefully played misdirection._

_His sons, his young lords, are absorbing it all._

_Although it is the one with the gold in his hair and the wolf in his eyes that stares, his body rocking and swaying with each movement of the men before him; determining his own strength compared to the warriors pitted against each other. Every thread and fiber of muscle and flesh is attuned to the craft of violence. _

_Although it is the one with the fire in his hair and the lion in his eyes that flicks his gaze from one man to the next, his fingers twitching as he easily anticipates and dissects the consequence of those same movements. When the knights stand again and set to spar once more, it is this son who asks the combatants to move slower; to allow him to see the nuances of their game._

_There is a tumbling crush deep behind the ribs of the old lion, and for a blinding moment he fears for his life. But when the pressure lifts and the feeling left is contentment, Tywin knows what he suffered was pride. _

_The unguarded moment of adoration for his sons, these sons, leads to a wave of awful guilt and bitter remembrance. _

_Why is it he allows this of himself now, with them… with her?_

_That awful guilt arcs and bucks itself into a morbid sense of betrayal. And Tywin has to place the palm of his hand flat against the cold rough stone beside him to keep himself footed. It has been years since Joanna's words fluttered inside his mind, and he can only hope he does not lose himself completely to what she has to say._

"_Love your children, my lion."_

_The voice is like wind, traveling sure and all around him; unable to hold it in his hands, or in his ears, Tywin cannot even remember if the voice is her's at all. The ache in his heart has returned, but this time there is no contentment, no joy, only hurt and sorrow._

_He straightens his stance and sets to leave when the clatter of steel yanks his concentration away from self pity._

_The shorter of the knights as disarmed the other, whose sword is now strewn into the wood shavings and dirt close to their live steel and oiled and polished helms. Equipment that would never see the inside of a sparring pen._

_The knights turn to their youthfully enraptured audience and offer to help them down from the tall scaffold where they had perched._

_Rykar refuses in his charmingly smug manner, mid-scramble down the most precarious side of the wooden dowel structure. Whereas Tysan takes his time, still refusing, but explaining to the men that he had gotten up there himself - he could get down as well._

_The tingling fulfillment is back in the Great Lion, little ripples playing outward from the center of him as he watches his boys. _

"_Love your children, my lion."_

_Tywin calms and leans again on the wall directly behind his wife - her still unaware of his presence._

_They watch with an intent only a parent can possess; using their own periphery as a further protection - looking for threats and dangers outside the natural worry and care of their little ones._

_Tysan wandered to where the practice blade lay and stopped, his vision continuing to garish helmet shining under the torches like and invitation for the perusal of the young._

_The lord and lady of Casterly Rock witness one four year old using cunning beyond his years to engage men in tales of skirmishes and adventure, and the other using wisdom beyond his years to formulate and deduce a calculation known only to him._

_But it is as they are considering the eldest of the two they see him make a reach for the sword. Not the one that had been wrenched from the knight's grip during mock combat, but the deadly sharp castle-forged steel that laid polished and invitingly unsheathed next to one of the grotesquely ornate helms._

_Sansa immediately moves off the wall and makes to step in, to vanquish the danger presented to their son._

"_Don't," he whispers._

_He can see her, feel her, start at his word. She has not noticed him at all since his approach, and he can sense his wife's immediate unease - something he quells by slipping his arms around her and brushing his cheek down hers, to her neck._

_The effect is immediate, her body relaxes and her hands seek their comfort on the arms about her middle._

_He whispers again, and this time he is so close he can feel her usher out a shiver of a different kind._

"_Just watch," he says._

_Tywin's thumbs rub circles where they lay midriff; a gesture that has always soothed... them both._

_Tysan, supporting the flat of the blade on the thick padded sleeve of his doublet as his hand grips the pommel as best he can, crouches awkwardly toward the helm - almost losing his balance in the effort, standing again quickly to regain it._

_The old lion squeezes the tips of his fingers into the gown of his wife, knowing she is but ready to rescue her child._

"_Wait," he murmurs into her neck, smiling at the shudder he feels everywhere he is pressed._

_Their oldest makes another attempt to crouch, his endgame still a mystery, this time compensating for the forward weight of the weapon. _

_The boy pauses to assess the helm and it seems like Tywin and Sansa both hold their breath for him. It's only a moment before Tysan Lannister slips the tip of the honed steel into a gap in the helms visor that seems visible only to him._

_His son of four, Tywin considers, set aside his natural curiosity in order to find a flaw. And what a weakness to find, one that is both an advantage and an assurance of life._

_Proud, indeed._

_Love, indeed._

_A smile widens on his face and it is Sansa's voice that now sails clear and unbidden through his mind._

"_How did you know?"_

_It's not a question made in a state of wonder, but more a demand for the vital part of a riddle._

_He huffs out a laugh, all air and playful indignation, and watches the muscles of her jaw bow and pull to what he knows is her smile._

_Cinching closer to the creature, the siren, that untucks from him things it took decades to stow away and hide, he breathes her in. _

_He lives on the air she gives him. _

"_It's what _I_ would have done," is his answer._

_His proximity is a boon to the young woman, and, instead of words, she nudges her backside onto the part of him that makes him heat and growl._

_Sansa looks over her shoulder at him, blushing pink even in the midst of her boldness. She is striking, his wife, in beauty and contradiction; equal parts pure maiden and wanton temptress._

_Tywin raises one hand and gently tips her chin back, covering her lips with his. Her body is so trusting in him to keep her upright and safe; it is without question. As he feels her arm thread up and around to take hold at his nape, his other hand remains at her middle to cradle her swollen belly._

_The Great Lion deepens their kiss as he softly rubs the distended expanse of their child._

_The life they made together._

_Not for gain. Not for advantage. _

_Just for them..._

A firm hand Tywin recognized as Kevan's pulled him out of the heavy mist of sleep; and in stepping away from his dream he also noticed his actuality: he was shaking. Not a tremble in his muscles, but an agony in his chest.

The Lion of Lannister was weeping.

He could feel the hot line of tears down his face and the grit in his throat from sobbing.

"You were calling to your wife, my lord," Kevan whispered.

The dark of the room announced evening, but _which _evening Tywin could not discern.

_Love your children, my lion _fluttered in his ears and did nothing but confuse him.

"_Joanna_."

The eldest Lannister struggled to choke back the emotion that was violently riled from a dream he could no longer remember.

_No, that's not right_, his addled mind protested. That's not who greets him in sleep anymore.

Ser Kevan smiled in the dark, practically crawling on his brother, moving to rest his palm on Tywin's arm, away from the lashes that were searing hot on his back as his body fought to stay infection.

"No, Ty," he replied gently, "not Joanna."

Tywin nodded his understanding into his arms, into his tunic - balled up and used to pillow his head - an unseen gesture that was the only movement he could muster without cracking open scabs.

_Sansa_.

The old lion sighed as his brother carefully dabbed a cool cloth along the burning edges of the worst of his lesions.

_Wounded lions are dangerous_, he considered, _but threaten the pride and it is the lioness that will bring upon that threat a thundering calamity of devastation_.

_But what of both a wolf _and_ a lion? A threatening of both pride _and_ pack? _

_That_, he smirked knowingly to himself, _is a destructive weapon most unfathomable_.

Whatever was to happen to him, he acknowledged, was moot. He was negligible in this new game; this twist of new players and divisions and consequences. But it was exactly what he had planned for.

_Sansa would outlast them all_.

And with that peace, he fell to dream again; surrendering to the beauty of her, his wife - his wolf, his lioness.

Absolutely.

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** A huge thank you to my beta, content developer, researcher, sounding-board, and internet life-partner: dealbreaker19 **

_(any mistakes are mine alone - I tend to fiddle and tweak, up to posting)_


	3. Tywin pt IIb

***Note:** This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual abuse. Please be aware of your own sensibilities and proceed accordingly.*

****Additional Note (please read):** While this series is no stranger to violence in any capacity, the following two chapters delve into the culmination of said torment in respect to the man who ultimately wrought the previous connotations (Tywin Lannister).

I feel I must warn you, the reader, as per my beta, (who has no triggers, and no aversion to the level of detail I provide):

_"Woman, it's rough stuff."_

_"...you better put a billion warnings on this one."_

It's not my habit to write torture porn. The acts described in these two chapters (and in prior chapters), are not there for the sake of something gory, they are a testament to the adage _reaping what one sows_, and are acts that I feel - in these instances - a character like Tywin Lannister would only expect.

If you have any sort of trepidation, I thoroughly encourage you to skim/avoid the second part of Tywin pt IIa, and the later portion of the first part of Tywin pt IIb. You will not miss out on the encompassing storyline, I assure you, just the harder details.

Regards,

Relic

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Tywin was sat watching the queen pace and grumble; and rage and pace once again. From his place as the only occupant behind a large wooden table at the center of court, the monotony of her psychosis was becoming a bore.

"Targaryens ruled three hundred years in peace," she declared to the room.

His game of silence was decidedly at an end.

"Is that what the horse-folk taught you?" the old lion scoffed, as though they had been conversing casually on a regular basis. "Your education is as tainted as your blood. I'd say you need only look to the Lord Commander of your guard for the truth - but no, his purpose was to _protect_ your father's madness, just as he will protect _yours_.

"However, I knew your father longer," he said in a manner which drew in the queen's interest. "I was here when he raped Rhaegar into your mother."

Tywin's serious demeanor did not falter, ignoring the agitated mutters around him. He simply jutted his chin toward Ser Barristan; the old knight wore a face that silently admitted what the lion had spoken was undisputable.

"I am bound by _no _oath," he leaned toward his captor, charming even amidst the grime of his clothing, "Do you want more truth, Your Grace?"

She had come to a dead stop. Standing static, looking at the man like he was a meal, or a superior, _or perhaps an inanimate object_ - Tywin could never be sure of the mechanisms within the minds of the mentally deficient.

"Don't think you came here as a saviour," he continued, in light of the queens apparent enthrallment, "Your dragons are _not_ mythical, they have razed an entire city - indiscriminately putting innocents to torch. Who do you think the people will remember: the girl and her dragons that were set upon to kill them, or the King who was betrayed trying to save them?"

Tywin's impassiveness was icy; a practiced detachment that was proving effective in distracting the queen.

"And, as you have found out, your pets are _not _invincible."

The ridiculous woman-knight had almost single handedly destroyed the black beast; she perished for her efforts, but she had also made herself into a song.

"You are a victor of opportunity, no more. Your strength is solely in your numbers, invading a land finally recovering from years of war and winter and still at a disadvantage; it is the most basic of strategy, and it makes you _less than average_."

He watched, satisfied when an angry red flush crept up her neck to the tips of her ears.

Tywin remained serious and matter of fact, "There is nothing great about you."

It was then he thought about extinction - of a name, of a bloodline, of a species. And the fact that no matter the climate of demise, there would always be rebirth - remembrance of some kind. It was with that knowledge he felt a comfort.

When the queen dismissed first the entirety of the court, then her Lord Commander from the great chamber, Tywin knew to prepare once again for pain. He rolled his shoulders covertly, testing the thick pads of healing skin and the larger remaining scabs that wept blood and pus; he felt is ire stir.

It was in the middle of the day, in the middle of the throne room, and the old lion was still a man of little patience.

Lord Tywin glared with an intensity that had the ability to destroy thoughts before they could be fully formed - the queen's were no exception.

"Do whatever it is you mean to do, girl," he kept his gaze locked on the young queen, "your company has become tedious."

He watched her peer over his head and nod, and before he could even look behind himself, he was seized roughly at the upper arms and lifted off his chair and his feet.

Lord Tywin was being manhandled mid-flight when the queen stepped down from her throne and ordered, in the tongue of her barbarians, to hold him still. She walked calmly to the older man and peered up to meet his gaze.

"Tell me, my lord, what kind of man condones the rape of a princess and the death of children?"

There was nothing outwardly apparent in the Great Lion, save apathy in its finest form; and when he failed to acknowledge her question, the queen asked another.

"What kind of man holds no conscience for unnecessary death and encourages needless slaughter?"

Again her inquiry was met with silence, a stony gaze, and an air of triumph.

"What kind of man-"

"The same man you are trying, and_ failing_, to make yourself into," the lion purred coolly.

Whatever the Targaryen was expecting, it certainly was not that.

"I will _never _be you!" screeched the Mother of Dragons, her outrage instantaneous.

Her anger was telling, and if Lord Tywin were the type of man who thought to proceed with even the barest hint of compassion, he would have pitied her in her madness.

But he was not. And he did not.

Instead he looked at her squarely, his face severe, addressing her in a tone to match, "And it will be _that _which haunts you, child."

With a noise of utter fury, the queen flung a command to her savages; Lord Tywin was off of his feet and hurled back lengthwise on top of the table he had been seated at previously.

The breath was forced from him and it took a moment for him to regain his sense of direction; though the first regained facet of his recognizance acknowledged that heavy bodies pinned him down at his legs and shoulders.

Lying there, Tywin blinked in long lethargic movements, the pain along the skin of his back already something of the past.

He scoffed to himself.

In all his years living in that damned room, he had never once bothered to look _up_.

The ceiling was nothing short of magnificent.

The tops of each column stretched in elegant arches, reaching to connect with their brothers. It was there, taking life from the marble itself, that he saw them.

Dragons, of course, but also, just as proud and defiant and strong, were stags and wolves and falcons and roses and suns and spears and kraken. His mouth twitched. There, right in the thick of the menagerie, breaking free of the cluster, was his own.

The proud rampant lion, mouth open and vicious.

_Hear Me Roar_.

Indeed.

He was brought out his unexpected reverie by the now calm intonation of Queen Daenerys, "Since you can't define what kind of man you are, Lord Tywin, I will spare you the variety."

He heard movement of the queen's rags as she walked around, and then saw a dark stumpy man waddle his way into the chamber in his periphery. The man was holding a leather roll whose contents distinctly clanked with a muffled metallic chime - and it took no estimation on the lion's part as to what lay in store for him.

Anguish.

He could not imagine what kind of torment he was about to encounter, held down at the limbs on a wooden table; but, whatever it was, he knew it would not kill him. No, _his_ demise would be very public - in that fact he had no doubt.

The man's accent was some gods-forsaken lilt, but not so entirely indistinguishable that Tywin could not make out his question.

"Take ev'yting, Mudder?"

"No," the queen answered immediately, "leave something his wife can mourn."

Tywin went dizzy with a surge of rage that shot directly behind his ribs, though he did not move. Whether his anger was due to the whore mentioning his wife or the anticipation of the cruelty to come; he did not know.

But as soon as the savages at charge of his legs tore open the laces and stripped him of his breeches, Lord Tywin felt a wave of queasy foreboding lunge beneath his skin, through his body, just as powerful as his ire moments before.

No, his entrails would not be hooked; his skin would not be flayed...

He thought of two small boys, then a set of golden twins…

His wife… His wives…

_Gods_.

The rickety old man stepped into the vee the lion's legs made as they dangled off the table and handled the soft cock found at the apex in a disgustingly rehearsed manner.

Tywin spit curse after curse out of reflex… and was ignored for his efforts.

Hands that were once holding down his shoulders shifted, and one thick forearm snaked its way under the lion's chin. It trapped his head into looking nowhere but upward; and it was the removal of control, of seeing and observing, that caused Lord Tywin to breathe in ragged pushes and pulls.

There was a horrid pinch as something was tied tight to his flaccid cock, a weight of some sort that pulled the appendage up toward his belly and exposed his sac.

His breathing begun to hollow.

Shifting his hips violently, he threw the beasts off kilter, fighting against what he knew was inevitable.

He felt a huge body drape over his middle, ending his struggle to move and beginning his struggle to breathe.

_Oh gods!_

Another terrifying pinch out of nowhere, and he knew his testicles were tied off at the root.

_Please… gods!_

Praying to those entities now was just as fruitless as praying to them before. Callous, not benevolent, an institution that whored itself to lure of coin.

_Bastards!_

Over the sound of his heart in his ears, and the wheezing labour of his lungs, he heard the distinct plinking of tools being unrolled, sorted…

...chosen.

_No! Nonononono…_

He squeezed his eyes shut.

The first nick was a hot quick slice made with a blade surely razor-thin. There was no pain to speak of, not initially, not until the pulse of his own blood showed him deftly where the horrific ache was.

The small man knew his craft and knew how to prolong the suffering; making many incisions in a procedure that could very well have been over in barely a moment.

Tywin felt a sickly-cold sweat bead over him, the pain of the tiny cuts burrowing to where he hid away from them in his mind.

He began to struggle, frothing at the mouth. But even these movements were calculated to the lion; thrashing his head, enticing the mongrel there to curl and flex the arm he had anchored around his chin and neck.

He was manipulating the poor animal, and it was a sin how easy it was.

Tywin wanted blackness, wanted nothingness to feast on him, and he was almost there when the constricting arm was removed altogether - and so ceased the man and his knives.

Gasping for air, the old lion swore and burbled through his teeth, frustrated in his torture.

He heard the queen mutter in a tongue he could not care to name, then seemingly clarify in a language he had no choice but to comprehend.

"No," she said, "I want to _hear _him."

There must have been a silent command, some wordless communication between the gnarled bastard at his groin and the wisp of a girl who called herself his mother. For once again there was no hesitation of the metal scoring him, of the searing lightning agony that bit into him.

Tywin tried to concentrate. He tried to go away. But instead found himself staring with pleading eyes at the frozen exhibition above him.

There was no help to be found there, in the symbols that marked the families he had, for so long, strove to sway and manipulate.

What a taunt it was.

With a final gouge a part of him was removed; and with it severed the last remnant of his restraint.

A bellow of scorching desperation echoed for a lifetime, dancing like a horrible prayer in and around the apathetic sigils in the heavens above him.

Not a high-pitched sound of pain and distress, but a throaty roll of defeat. It was a noise that rattled Tywin's sternum and caused his voice to buckle painfully.

It was the frightening call of dominance finally, forcefully, laying down into submission.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ser Kevan Lannister fought the dark to watch his brother sleep.

The barbarians had drug his unconscious form back to their cell just before dusk. And it was just after as the slits in the upper wall went black that Tywin began to shiver.

The elder was fevered and babbling, much worse than when he had been lashed. The pain he endured was deep this time, and Kevan had a stabbing pang of utter fear that the new Queen sought vengeance against Lady Sansa and his nephews.

Despite the promises and reassurances of the Imp, the reputation alone of the Lannister name, of _his_ generation, was a death sentence in this scenario. An opportunity to exact revenge would not be ignored, and certainly not by a Targaryen.

It was in the small hours of night, those just before the sky begged for light, that Tywin had become lucid enough to wrench out a word before the shaking near-madness swallowed him again.

"_...gelded._"

It was followed by what could have been a sob or a laugh, Kevan was unsure; he could not yet see to confirm either way. But the statement brought with it an initial, sympathetic wave of nausea that began in his groin.

_Oh, Tywin. My brother. My lord_.

Of course, he would sustain the brunt of the cruelty. Kevan himself ate kicks and punches for the knowledge they sought to extract, the knowledge he would die for; but cracked ribs and swollen eyes were nothing in comparison to _this_. They seemed set to carve away at his brother, even now, well after information had become secondary, they were content with taking in flesh what they could not gain in words or apologies.

His brother was a man who should have been a king; _was_ king for the better part of four reigns. He was a man who suffered no fools, the first of whom was their own father. He was the man to allay just how many teeth the Lannisters bore, for the sake of their family's integrity.

Tywin was a boy cursed with a rigid sense of pride; instilled by their mother, only to watch her death unhinge the uselessness of their sire.

His pride sometimes blinded the old lion, Kevan could admit; but the effectiveness was undeniable.

Tywin had no interest in what was easy; he simply wanted things to work. He would plan meticulously in order to accommodate the needs of the many - the priority of family - but he also knew there was no plan or action that could wholly satisfy _the entirety_. There would always be those who will baulk and cry about what was fair, but the trick was to minimize those to as few as possible - and settle those disputes with a quick and heavy hand.

His brother's trust was granted to fewer people than could be counted with one hand, Kevan knew, but it was this wary defense that defined Tywin as a young man and garnered him success throughout his life.

But when the pool of trust dwindles to only a few souls, you leave loyalty to chance. This fact was proven at the beginning of the new-Targaryen invasion.

The North and the Riverlands were loyal because of Lady Sansa, there was little doubt; the only real variable was the Reach. And in keeping the Tyrell's close, the Lions had sealed their fate; giving the Roses the run of the garden proved only to choke out everything else.

Kevan swallowed back the thick knot in his throat and returned his focus to the brother he followed into the maw of a dragon - to the brother he would follow again to the same destination, without hesitation.

Because he loved him.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Tywin blinked at the bright strip of light that had angled to cover his eyes. He was loathe to move, to adjust his seat and posture, as the horrid ache which at first wracked through him now only radiated - but less so in certain positions.

_My masculinity is _quite_ secure_. The words rang true.

A lesser man would have caved to the pain; to the horrible knowledge that what defined them as a man had been cut away; but Tywin Lannister was no lesser man.

A full moon's turn later; and there he sat.

Everything that surrounded him and Kevan was rank. Their clothing, their single fur and blanket on the floor that served as bedding, them - their skin started to become an offence, no matter the effort that was made to wash.

Even the air from outside was more a toil than usual. The whiff of charred wood and meat that had hung for moons was finally dwindling - though now King's Landing's ever-present smell of shit and rot was seeking revenge.

But for whatever annoyance it was, it was at least something to occupy them.

They had waited in their cell for weeks now, the queen seemingly bored with them, all but forgotten save a meal a day of whatever bread and meat were most maggot-infested. Not that they expected to be treated well, by any means, it was merely another ploy riddled with transparencies.

Yet one more assurance that his wife would prevail in this new world.

The Great Lion taught her all he could in the time they had; a struggle at first, but once she opened herself to the idea of having a greater expectation of herself, Sansa flourished.

She bloomed and thrived and took it upon her natural tendencies to become a teacher as well.

And but how the lion was studious.

He had learned that the bitter taste of crow was palatable when served with forgiveness.

He had learned that his wife was just as much a part of his strength and fortitude as he was, as his name was, as his gold was.

He had learned that her scent - that of the light floral perfume she favored, the citrus in her bath, and the smell of _her_ - could make his mouth water.

He had learned that the press of her body laying atop his offered first pain - where her pelvis dug into his groin - then infinite pleasure when she would lift slightly and rub against him at a new angle.

He had learned that when she found her pleasure, shuddering and gasping his name, that he became a different soul altogether - no longer just a man, but a _thing_ capable of pleasing the goddess that chose to share his bed.

He had learned.

And he had suffered.

Tywin languished under the perpetual grace of his wife and spent the latter part of his marriage atoning for the wrongs he had perpetrated upon her - physically, emotionally, and by proxy.

He was every part a penitent man, burning in an unfamiliar state of remorse, but it was for the sake of Sansa alone.

For no one else. Not for his siblings. Not for his children.

Only for her.

And it was Sansa he was dreaming about, eyes wide open, in the middle of the day, when his senses thought to trick him. He believed he smelled her. He believed he heard her voice - authoritative and divine.

The old lion was settling into his new dreams where the vision of his wolf was invigorated, made almost tangible, when his brother spoke to spoil it.

"Ty, that's Lady Sansa. I hear her."

From where he was leaning against the ugly wooden door, Lord Tywin rolled his head lazily to meet Ser Kevan's eye.

Tywin knew what precious time he had anticipated at the moment of his defeat was near exhausted. And much like those finite measures, the lion himself felt the end creep further into his tired bones.

He uttered not a word as a smile widened on his face.

The notion of an end, and thus a beginning, was something embraced.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Tywin woke for the second time that day, Kevan remained absent since the evening prior.

The stretch of light on the floor in front of him told him it was still very early morning.

The excited whispers and hurried pace of steps outside his door told him this was the day he would die.

And as if on cue, the door to his cell swung open hard, admitting a beast larger than the entryway itself. Though, the hairless dark man's function seemed at odds with his form; Tywin watched the animal set down a bucket of water, hard-pack soap, and some linens, as he held in his hand what looked to be a shaving blade.

The razor seemed a children's toy in a palm that large, Tywin noticed - yet one more thing at odds with the beast.

"Wash."

The barely intelligible instruction came with the linens tossed at him, and the man mimicking the act. Tywin understood by the imposing, unmoving figure, that the beast would be inclined to witness the cleansing of his queen's sacrificial lion.

So be it. This particular lion was well beyond concerned.

The water was cold, and his groin ached dull and persistent. He did not care.

The giant hand once again made a motion, this time it was to stall Tywin in redressing in his filthy clothes, and to shake the razor.

Looking up at the massive bald brute, the lion pointed to the man's oiled skull, and then back to his where a growth of hair ringed the back of his head from ear to ear, then to the course hair that filled in above and below his lips, and down his neck.

With a toothy grin, the giant wasted no time. Tywin was very nearly dry-shaved, but the miracle was that no bloodshed occurred.

He was offered a pair of clean breeches and a tunic. He took the breeches.

Once dressed and ready, Tywin made for the door - outside which stood a clutch of savages waiting for their most important charge - and as he made to squeeze past the human wall sharing his space, the strange barber yet again surprised him.

His hand wrapped completely around Tywin's bicep, prompting the lion to glare at the beast. But the beast glared back, and it was nothing hostile.

The man, so foreign and bizarre, looked at Tywin squarely - with eyes that spoke of naught but solemn respect.

What a startling notion, this comradery amongst soldiers.

Amongst men.

Amongst _beings_.

Enemy or ally. Savage or Lord. Each is an animal that bleeds; each is an animal that dies. There are no favours when it comes to the Stranger, death is gift bestowed to every living thing at the moment of their birth. The only discrepancy amidst individuals is time - and even that cannot be purchased, only borrowed.

Lord Tywin twitched the corner of his mouth, nodding knowingly at the man, his equal. Of which, the reply was another toothy smile and a nod of his own.

His arm was released.

The lion walked.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Tywin Lannister was at peace as he paced willingly to his end.

It was well into the afternoon and the sun was just making its descent.

With every corner turned, with every corridor left behind, Tywin felt lighter. Burdens lifted, concerns quelled, his soul centered; he was a man ready to burn. It was not some mystical foresight that he knew of his method of execution - like most everything pertaining to the Targaryen queen, it was disappointingly predictable.

When his procession suddenly halted, Lord Tywin found himself jarred from his final thoughts and summations.

It was an interruption made more appalling due to the reason; a reason who waddled past a row of barbarians, straight into his line of sight.

The old lion had no intention of conversing, but as words were set before him - carefully dealt, weighed and assessed on each side of such an obvious gamble - Tywin savoured the opportunity, this _final _opportunity, to lay the game to rest.

"Are you truly going to die hating me?"

The smug air in which the question was asked was part and parcel of he who had asked it.

"I don't _hate _you Imp, I simply don't _care_ about you."

Tywin leaned in and sneered, "The woman you took from me, the colours you wear, the name you continue to end your own with..." He looked to the direction from whence he came, wearing a look of sadness for a heartbeat before it was gone and both his disdain and focus returned to Tyrion. "_That _is what I care about. Not _you_," he scoffed cruelly, "Never _you_."

Tyrion looked to where his father pined and opted to hurt him equally; to force his hand in emotion, "You _do_ care for Sansa, then."

When he turned back, the face and tone of Tywin Lannister was a void, "More than a creature like you will ever comprehend."

"Oh, I _comprehend_, father," he choked out in a shaky whisper, "I know exactly what that feels like."

There was nothing in the elder Lannister, save agitated disappointment.

"What happened to her?" Tyrion seethed.

"I'm sure I have no idea to whom you are referring-"

"My _wife_!" his body set to tremble in his fury.

"You're not married Tyrion," the old lion laughed, "I gave you the opportunity once and you handed her back to me - though considering the waste it would have been, I'm grateful. But come now, has your debauchery finally leached you of your senses?"

The queen's Hand felt half-mad with the same outrage that swallowed him the night of his escape; the night he opted to save a friend instead of kill an enemy. And there, in the corridor, there was no one to tie his emotions, yet he was equally robbed of the satisfaction of removing the life of the man who had made his existence a misery.

"Where is she?!" Tyrion visibly shook in his effort to speak. "Gods help your _precious fucking legacy_ if you don't-"

"What is it you want me to tell you, Tyrion?" Lord Tywin interrupted, like he was offering no more than an easy platitude. "Do you want me to tell you that I slit her throat and fed her to the dogs?" He raised a brow. "That I fucked her myself and sold her to a passing merchant trader? That she _thanked me_ for annulling her mistake and is living comfortably, with more than a fist full of silvers?"

Tywin flicked his fingers as though brushing away a fly. "She was a whore who had no right to my name, and she's gone." He looked at the Imp with a critical glare. "Don't tell me your substantial inadequacies should be blamed on the memory of a woman."

The air in Tyrion's lungs burned; there was a pitted wrath in him that wanted only to kill this man, his father. But he was never one to give in to what the Great Lion assumed of him already, and once again he aimed to hurt.

Shrugging in a way he knew Lord Tywin utterly despised, Tyrion raised his uneven brows and drawled casually, caustically, "Like father like son, it seems."

He watched as his father turn to stone and straightened to a height and posture that did not require him to wear armour in order to lay waste and conquer.

Tywin then turned abruptly, without further comment or care, and walked away. He looked as though it was _he_ who wasleading the men taking him to his death.

And, strangely, Tyrion thought, _that _would always be the truth of it.

The Great Lion of Casterly Rock would control even his own execution.

Tyrion Lannister laughed then, the cracks in his very soul seeping both sorrow and elation. Each proportionate. Each tragically doleful.

The sound was something truly terrible.

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** A huge thank you to my beta, content developer, researcher, sounding-board, and internet life-partner: dealbreaker19 **

_(any mistakes are mine alone - I tend to fiddle and tweak, up to posting)_


	4. Sansa pt Ia

He was much like a cat. A lion, really. He could feel it in him. He was quiet and could climb to places others could never reach or even find to being with.

He was a wolf too. Fierce and powerful. Unafraid of anything or anyone.

But a lion mostly.

Jaime called him a _gods-damned monkey_, and for Rykar Lannister that animal was just as amazing as any lion or wolf, if only because his oldest brother thought him one.

He smiled to himself as he shimmied along the highest rafters of the main archway to the outer bailey of Casterly Rock. The boy was pitched in shadows, moving with the subtlety of one too; quietly observing; laying in wait.

Jaime had shown him this spot; high and away, tucked into the dark recess of the archway's ceiling. It held all the traffic the Rock, so he could hide easily, and scare girls whenever he wanted.

Although he was there, on that day, at that time, not to tease the laundry maids, but to talk to his father.

He could have visited Lord Tywin in his solar, but the little lion had no interest in scratching quill to parchment or waiting - and that was what you did in that room. Rykar much preferred swords and excitement, like Jaime, and knew once he had to sit as the Lord of Winterfell his life would be nothing more than talking and writing.

He hated his letters. He hated his numbers. He hated having to stand with his father and be introduced to bannermen and other lords... and especially _ladies._

The ladies would always want to pet him and Tysan, touch them like they weren't even real; they were nothing like aunt Genna. At least _she _would lean in close and teach them a new curse word while pinching their cheeks.

Most ladies smelled bad too. Not like his mother, she smelled good, like home. Those others, their perfume would rest on his tongue and taste bitter, like eating soap. Even ladies his own age were boring - what use is a girl if her dress prevents her from running or climbing or doing anything fun?

Jaime said that he would like ladies just fine when he was older, but Rykar thought his brother had lost some of his mind along with his hand.

The last time the Lord Commander visited, Rykar had asked him when he could get a golden hand of his own - to which the elder had only seemed to look far away and change his face at the question. They had been laughing and teasing each other until Jaime's hand was mentioned, then he was no longer happy and smiling. It had been like watching a storm born of the sea roll into the coast - all dark and grey, making the world crush in and sit heavy before the rain fell.

He thought maybe his older brother just didn't want to share, but mother would have made him anyway - because that's what was fair.

Rykar hadn't understood Jaime's switch of mood, and when the boy went to touch the man, tug on the golden hand that danced around and played with his fascination, the elder recoiled as though the younger were something to fear.

Jaime had offered to spend the day with him, only him, when Ty was stuck doing writing and other boring things with Lord Tywin, and his mother was in the Riverlands. It was more than a fair trade if you were to ask Rykar - his oldest brother had shared a secret passage that lead straight up to the roof of the inland watch tower, and that's where they had stayed for most of the day.

The older had divulged the best places to spy on those below without being seen, where to sit and be safe and warm in the sunlight, and also how to kneel low on the roofline in order to piss off the tiled edge... without it getting caught in the wind and coming back to hit you. _That _skill took more than one try to get the hang of, but Jaime said he would never tell anyone that the little lion pissed in his own face - although he was trying very hard not to laugh when he made the promise - and Rykar trusted his brother implicitly to keep his secret.

His oldest brother was a knight, _the Kingslayer!_, the Golden Lion, the Lord Commander of the Kingsgaurd, and far more than a hero to the youngest lions of the family. It was that reality that caused Rykar to roar out his frustration and grab Jaime's golden hand anyway.

The prosthetic was cold and heavy, like he suspected, but there was absolutely no give in the way that it was fastened - far more restricted than the boy had anticipated. He twisted it and moved it without as much as a word from Jaime - the knight was still trapped somewhere in his head, his eyes were lost and empty.

"I don't wish this on anyone, monkey," Jaime had said in an empty tone.

But it wasn't really Jaime; his voice had gone the same distance as his eyes.

"I wouldn't either," was Rykar's distracted reply. He was still tugging and turning his brother's cumbersome hand as he continued excitedly, "I'd keep it all to myself!"

The little lion then climbed onto the lap of his brother to get a closer look and couldn't help but notice Jaime coming back from wherever he had flown off to. It was like when Rykar and Tysan would see their mother become distracted at the oddest things, at the oddest times, then look almost like she was resurfacing from being underwater.

That was the way Jaime had looked, like he was swimming back, and Rykar had been glad of it.

He loved his oldest brother and wanted to be just like him when he became a man... but didn't want to go away like Jaime had.

"You don't need to hold a sword now." The little lion lifted then dropped the metal appendage, grinning at the solid thump-sound it made on the wooden planking they were sat perched. "It's a weapon all by itself."

Rykar gasped out the words of his greatest inquiry, the most wonderful idea, "Have you hit anybody with it? That would hurt something awful - you think, Jaime?"

The younger smiled wide and excited at his older brother. It was the same smile and same excitement Jaime gave directly back - all the way out of the water now.

Everyone said he looked just like the Lord Commander did when he was six with the exact same hunger for adventure too, just with different colored eyes.

Rykar liked being the same as his brother - all but his eyes. And how he so wanted green eyes like Jaime, and like Tysan... like aunt Genna and uncle Kevan... just like his lord father.

The maester told him he couldn't change them, but he was smiling when he said it - so Rykar knew not to trust his answer. Father said never to trust a man that smiles the first time you meet him - but he also said Jaime was the exception because he was family... and _something of a fuckwit_.

"The Tullys are known for their eye colour," Jaime had told the boy.

"But I don't want to be a fish!" Rykar had grouched in return.

"You have the mane like me though, and the eyes of your mother. You are the only Lannister with those traits Ry, it makes you a special lion - just as Tysan's red hair makes him special too."

Jaime pointed out to the wide expanse of the Westerlands, spread out before them, bathed in the sun that was now behind them.

"See the sky? See where is meets the land?"

Rykar nodded.

"See how the sky is blue and the land is green?"

The boy gave a furious nod.

"That's you and Ty."

Jaime chuckled at the absolute look of bewilderment on his baby brother's face.

"What colour are your eyes, monkey?"

"Blue"

"And what colour are Ty's?"

"Green."

"Now look out to where the horizon is. You are the sky, monkey, and you will always be looking out over your brother."

The boy looked pensive; collecting his thoughts on the puzzle Jaime had given him.

Like him, Rykar was a child that saw letters and numbers on parchment as a chore, but excelled when things happened around him; when they could _see _the problem, they could understand and fix it without writing it down.

Jaime had spoken to Sansa privately, vaguely alluding to his concern. She just as subtly reassured her understanding that the boys learned differently than each other; it was a paradigm of _could-have-been_, and it made the Golden Lion miss his own mother horribly.

"And Tysan looks out for dirt?"

Jaime snapped out of his reverie and laughed at such a volume it echoed in cackles off the rooftop around them.

Rykar liked it when he laughed that way or smiled big with his teeth - truth was, he just liked it when his brothers were happy.

"No, he looks out for you too - but like the land on the horizon, he does it with a different perspective. It's good to have as many as you can."

The little lion's mouth dropped open a tiny amount as he hummed and nodded his comprehension.

"What about when he's here and I'm freezing cold in the North?"

The Lord Commander kept a smile, but not as toothy as before, and his eyes squinted.

"Does the North have a horizon?"

"I... I don't- maybe..."

"It does, monkey, I promise - I've seen it."

Jaime's face went serious then, and Rykar thought maybe he was going to go away inside his head again, but it was only his voice that changed - it was thick and scary, like when he would talk to the soldiers during sparring practice.

"No matter where you are, Rykar, there will always be a horizon. And when you see it, it will always remind you that Tysan is looking out for you. Do you understand?"

The little lion pondered for a moment, "And when he sees it, he'll know that I'm always looking out for _him_."

Jaime's eyes went from squinting to closed, his mouth curved up at the corners, and he leaned his head back to enjoy the cooler breeze approaching dusk. Yet it was a small fierce voice that hooked onto that breeze and washed over the knight with the kind of sorcery he could only find in the company of a brother.

"You're the land at the horizon too, Jaime. I'll always look out for you too, you know."

The older Lannister opened his eyes and looked somber at the child sitting on his lap, leaning on his chest, and petting the hand that could not feel the attention; the same child that had his hair and his face.

Jaime felt it in his heart then, the tight ache of loss and self pity, and pulled his baby brother into a frantic embrace.

He hugged his monkey with the kind of desperation that adults recognize as a deep personal turmoil, that children interpret as love and affection.

Rykar wrapped his arms around the neck of his hero and hugged the man for everything he was worth.

Life was good at that moment - on that day, perched on that roof - and the world seemed all right then… for both the monkey _and_ the lion.

But Jaime had left to return to King's Landing not long after that day, and Lord Tywin was now, so many moons later, set to leave too.

Sometimes his father would take him and Tysan to King's Landing with him, for when he had to be the King's hands.

Sometimes Rykar wondered if that was what happened to Jaime's hand - the king used it up - and now Lord Tywin went there because he had two of them.

Their mother would stay at the Rock most times. She only went to the capital when there was something big happening - his father said she was stronger anywhere but there, but Rykar didn't know if he agreed.

His lady mother always had the look of being pulled underwater when they were in King's Landing, but it never made her look weak… just more serious, like Lord Tywin himself.

...and his father was strong _wherever _he went.

And now, more than anything, Rykar wanted to show his own strength - and go with his father to fight the dragons.

He wasn't supposed to know that was why his lord father was leaving, but Tysan talked when his dreams got bad and Rykar couldn't help but know his secret. He had crawled into his bed, wooden sword and all, to protect his brother from the nightmares that were tearing into him, but in the end there was no true weapon against the beasts in dreams, and Rykar could only lay there and listen; to watch helplessly as Tysan flinched in his sleep, fighting against what scared him.

Tysan had not been happy in the time his father started preparation to leave - it never used to take more than a fortnight before - and in the days leading up to Lord Tywin's departure, the older twin had stopped talking altogether. Except in his sleep.

Rykar just wanted his brother to be his old self again, still quiet, but grinning too; to not be sad anymore, and the only way he knew to make Tysan better was to kill what it was that was hurting him.

Dragons flew, and Jaime said he was the sky. He would _not _let them near the ground, not near his brother,_ his brothers_… or his father.

So, lying balanced along the thick timber over the heads of unsuspecting passersby, the gods-damned monkey waited.

His thoughts took him in that pause, danced the little boy through those waking dreams of conquest. They sailed by fast and all at once, some made his heart race and others made him beam.

He settled on a thought that made him smile, one when their father had taken him and Tysan to Lannisport to inspect a new galley; when Lord Tywin slipped through the hatch to the lower hold beneath the bottom rowing-level ahead of them; when Rykar followed his brother into the lightless belly of the ship, only for them to be left standing alone in the square shaft of light from their entryway.

The tiny lions never saw it, but their father emerged from the inky black and stuck only his face and head into that beam of brightness above them - and the old lion did roar, loudly.

Both he and Tysan screamed the noises little baby pigs make and ran blindly into the darkness. He didn't know where his brother made it too, all Rykar knew was that he slammed full speed into the curved side of the boat - still sticky with whatever they used to pack the plank seams and dowel holes.

And when he rolled so his back was against the wall, to look on the scene of terror, he saw Lord Tywin standing tall, completely enveloped in the beam of light. He stood big and powerful, just like the statues in the sweaty, boring sept.

But this god, _his father_, was better than any statue in that moment - if only because he was happy. He even laughed - smiling wide and everything! Tysan could be heard off in the murky shadows giggling and laughing along with the Great Lion, and the sound of both could not be fended off - Rykar felt the fits giggles coming upon him and they would not be denied, so he laughed too.

When he walked back toward the brightness, Tysan was already there, still giggling; it made him feel weightless and good that the three of them were all laughing at the same time. But when he stepped into the beam of light too, he was the only one left chuckling.

His brother was wide-eyed, and puzzled. His father was narrow-eyed and looked very close to annoyed - but not quite there.

He looked back and forth, from father to brother, waiting for one of them to let him in on the secret.

"What?" Rykar had pleaded.

It was Tysan who tugged his palms to the front of his face.

Along the palms of his hands, just below where his fingers started, were sticky black lines; there were also perfect circles nearing the centers of each hand.

"What's on me?" he breathed, both fascinated and horrified.

It was his father's voice that sounded above him, and Rykar had to look - the old lion still sounded like he was going to laugh.

"Ran into the hull, did you?" Tywin scoffed. "You're striped in pine-pitch, boy."

What should have been a reprimand came out with a smile. Yet, when Rykar smiled back to his father he felt that same sticky resistance on his cheeks and near his ear. His fingertips confirmed it - his face was striped too.

He wanted his mouth and face to be pulled in a way to show disgust, but it must not have come out like that because Tysan fell into peals of laughter again. Looking to his father for sympathy was a mistake as well; the mouth of the old lion curled to a smile and his eyes looked bright like when he was laughing before.

Rykar let them have their fun… he knew how to pay a debt.

Once returned to Casterly Rock, Rykar was lifted from his mount by the knight he rode with and wandered hand-in-hand with Tysan to the stables.

Standing with their father, they silently waited for him to finish speaking with the horseman. It was as they waited that Merik, a stable boy of about their age, rounded into the stall and stopped cold when he saw Rykar's new appearance.

The other boy tried to quell the treacherous smile that was threatening to split his face in two, but when Rykar looked at his friend and roared his own laughter - the boy couldn't stop himself. They were quickly followed by Tysan.

The three of them were gasping for breath and doubled over at the sight of black lines that reached across not only Rykar's face, but his hair and clothes as well.

"You look like a tiger, not a lion," the stable boy laughed boisterously. His brows were raised and his hands were wrapped over his aching belly.

It was a blur what happened next; Merik was no longer in front of him, and what he thought was a coaxing slap to the hide of a horse somewhere in the stable was rendered appallingly clear as the menacing slap of a man to the face of a child.

Rykar's mouth hung open at the sight of his father; his face red, his eyebrows pinched low and mean-looking. His vision flickered over to Merik, sprawled in the dirt and the hay, his upper body coming to rest against the slats of the stall. His friend wasn't bawling, but his eyes were watering from the sting of it, and his hand was rubbing the place of impact. Rykar could see the long, finger-shaped welts already forming around the chin and over the bridge of his nose - a large wheal defined his father's palm where it had landed flush on the meat of the other boy's cheek.

"You are a _Lannister._ _No one_ laughs at you," Tywin said, unflinching in his arrogance.

The golden-haired twin didn't know what his face looked like this time either, but he surely hoped it reflected his utter confusion.

"But..." Rykar's eyes were fiery and sad all at the same time, "I laughed first... And he's my friend."

Lord Tywin had looked down his nose at his son, his face hot with something hateful. The old lion was breathing hard, his nostrils were flared, and his hands were fighting his mind in their yearning to reach out and throttle the little lion for even thinking to question him.

Both Tysan and Rykar were no strangers to their father's ire, nor were they unaware of the violence he was capable of in their presence; on remorseless whims, swift and brutal, the spill of blood that made a man still forever was not unknown to the boys. Though they had only seen it in context to prisoners - who were _all_ bad men to begin with... so said their lord father.

But that cruelty had never pertained to _them_.

Or children at all.

Ever.

...that they knew of.

"He is _not_ your friend." Lord Tywin leaned down to his youngest and sneered at him like he had only ever done with servants doing the wrong thing, "He is your _property_!"

The boy who was striped so comedically was bound in place and tilting with an unrivaled indignation, one that sparked and stabbed his guts.

Property.

_But that doesn't even make sense! _Screamed the mind of the child, _That wasn't even a puzzle!_

Rykar's mouth was dry, but ran with its own mind - a conscience altogether unaware of Lord Tywin... and bent on a slight hinge of madness.

"He's not a _horse_! He's a _boy_!"

He had never seen his father so undeniably furious. The Great Lion's fingers were curling and uncurling in front of him, like they were being held back from grabbing hold and demonstrating that bottled viciousness.

Rykar didn't care, he was furious too!

From the side of his eye, Rykar could see Tysan move in quietly, like he always did, and help pick Merik up to his feet. Without a word, the older twin gently pushed the sniffling stable boy out of the stall and, before following, grabbed the younger's hand and tugged him back too.

"We're going to bathe, my lord. Rykar needs it."

Pulled a little harder, the younger turned from the abominable scowl of the old lion and came face to face with the gentle kindness of his mother - inset in the features of Tysan. He was talking calmly, like nothing was wrong, no fear or anger either.

Rykar knew then and there, at the tender age of almost-six, that just because Tysan didn't like climbing and jumping and the things that _he_ liked, it did not paint him a coward. No, not even close. His brother was strong in other ways and having the power to control their father, _a god!_, was an unreal gift for anyone, let alone a child.

"Thank you for taking us with you, father," the Red Lion continued, still leading Rykar out, still looking only at the Great Lion, "We'll tell mother we're home."

When they had just about cleared the gate, Rykar looked back to his lord father - a preemptive flare of animosity already in place to rival that of the old lion.

But the flare was doused as surely as if the sea were in that stall as well.

His father, his god, was no longer enraged. The resentment of the man looked to have been washed away much like his own, and the face he wore was one the little lion could not easily recognize. It wasn't sadness, nor was it contentment… it was something out of place and in between.

It looked like Jaime when he had talked about their other brother, Tyrion, and made the twins take an oath never to mention the name outside of the room they were sitting in.

Once free of the stable, the three boys linked hands and ran fast to the one place they usually disappeared to on hot days.

Lower and lower into the Rock they ran, each knowing the way even if they closed their eyes. They only slowed when the stone underfoot perspired and made their steps unsure. They wound their way through caverns and had to feel along the walls for a distance before they reached the haven under the castle.

The pool in the cave was fed by a spring, not the Sunset Sea, and though the water was cold, it was not unbearable. The ceiling of the grotto reached so far up you couldn't see it, and although the hollow itself was formed well inside solid rock, there were notches and holes that dotted high on the walls - allowing for long spears of sunlight to illuminate what would have otherwise been nothing more than a black pit.

Rykar and Tysan found the pool all by themselves, it wasn't a tale from a servant or a hint from Jaime, and it was _their _secret place. When Merik became their friend, it belonged to him too - because you share with those who are your friends.

Each boy stripped down to nothing and sat lounging in the shallow part of the pool that was always drenched in warm sunshine.

The stripes of pine-pitch were eventually scrubbed off his skin, but Rykar found the price of being free of thick black tar meant he had to endure the pink lines that were scoured in instead. It was fair, more than fair really, if only because his two companions thought he was the most hilarious vision.

They all laughed. They laughed because it _was _funny, and there was nothing that should have dampened that humour.

The humour of children.

Amongst the three boys, none of them mentioned the actions of Lord Tywin, that day or any day after; no apology was offered, no apology was asked for - it simply being a matter of what was. And to that degree, little boys were little boys and had far better things to worry about.

However, the incident did become a vivid lesson for both he and Tysan; a flicker of doubt festering to consideration - a building comprehension that the cool yet affectionate father they knew in their own lives was not the same man beyond the circle of family. That the same man who would talk to them and make them giggle and feel loved as they settled for bed, thought of other boys, _their friends_, as nothing more than livestock - kept for a purpose, trained for efficiency, whipped for behaviour...

_...put down if they became lame?_

Those thoughts made his head hurt. The possibilities made his heart hurt.

So he pushed them away, those memories of an eventful day, and let his mind regale the stories he loved; the ones about him with a real sword, standing as tall as his father, swinging as strong as Jaime - slaying enemies and beasts alike - soldiering with Merik to protect King Tysan and, of course, his lady mother.

Rykar smiled then, letting the happy adventure take him and set-in to wait once more, high up in the skeleton of the archway.

The little lion had been draped flat with his cheek resting against the rough wooden beam for what felt like days before he finally caught sight of his father walking through the sally port.

The Great Lion always walked fast, in giant strides, and looked sullen.

Though if he were in the company of Lady Sansa, Lord Tywin's steps were smaller and his face didn't have so many jagged edges.

Luck was on the side of the monkey, in that the old lion was alone. All he had to do was wait for his father to be two beams away, then he could shimmy down the rigging - loudly, so as not to startle him; he found out the hard way that his father was not the man to try and scare.

Six beams away… Five beams away… Four beam-

An arm struck out of the shadows and clasped onto Lord Tywin's bicep.

Rykar instantly pinched-up his face and opted to watch the scene play out through the squint of his eyes rather than witness the unleashing of his father's fury unimpeded unto the owner of the offending hand. But there was no loud voice, no sign of violence... nothing like that.

Instead the one hand now had a mate, and they both grabbed at his father, tugging at him, pulling him into the dark black shadows they had emerged from.

For the briefest of moments Rykar feared for the old lion, but that fear turned to mystery when the deep frown on the lips of the man first flattened then rose at one corner, his brow matching the change.

Lord Tywin reached quickly into the murky nook and grabbed hold of his assailant.

It was the sharp, playful squeal at had Rykar's own mouth grinning too - as hard as it could.

Mother.

There were no words between his parents, and the little lion found his smile waning the longer he watched them - they were still like stone, just staring at each other. Their initial teasing melted away to the type of sober gravity both Rykar and Tysan had seen frequently since Lord Tywin announced his leave.

They touched all the time, his mother and father, that was not new, but as with the bouts of staring - recently, they had seemed to be touching more.

Aunt Genna said they were talking their own language; at first he thought it odd that a language would have no words. But then, he and Tysan didn't need to speak in order to know what the other was saying, so it must be true.

The Great Lion had a hand on either side of his mother's face, looking so intense; and his mother, she... she just looked so beautiful. But when she brought her hands up to his father's waist and fisted them forcefully into his doublet, the strain and pull of the fabric easily recognized even at a distance, the little lion so desperately wanted to know what she was saying with her touch.

Lord Tywin must have known her words because he started leaning in, and his mother was reaching up higher to hug… No… No, not to hug...

With a snap of his head, Rykar turned to the side and squeezed his eyes shut until white dots could been seen under his lids, wearing a look of utter disgust.

They were kissing!

His lord father and lady mother... _kissing_!

That sort of thing wasn't allowed outside, and they were doing it anyway!

He wanted to groan and run away, like he did in the keep, but the perilous straddle he had on the cross beam prevented him from moving. Prevented him from getting away from the breathing noises, the panting - like his parents were animals.

The disturbing sounds ended and looking upon them again, Rykar saw that his father still held his lady mother the same way - his hands on her face - he was slouched close and his mother was speaking real words in a tone he could not hear.

When Lady Sansa wrapped her hands in a grip on Lord Tywin's forearms - looking now with a seriousness her children never liked to see because it ate away at the loving look she normally carried - she looked to be speaking some great confidence, something important. Whatever she said transformed his father; his face was rid of everything mean and uncaring.

The Great Lion looked at his mother the same way Jaime looked at his sword - like it was the greatest thing in the world, but something he would never hold properly again.

There was a sadness in the monkey, the kind that felt like trying to swallow rocks, and he did not know where it came from.

Just as quick as his mother's hands had sprung out from nowhere, the interlude held by his parents ended. His lady mother stood tall on tip-toes and kissed his father again - fast this time so as not to be revolting - and watched him turn from her and leave.

But his father was going the wrong way! That meant he would have to endure parchments and talking and waiting… His lips sneered in dismay.

So caught up was he in the horrors of paperwork and patience, Rykar did not notice his mother carry on in the same direction his father had initially. Nor that she was stopped exactly one beam away and peering directly at him - like he was visible amongst the shade and gloom.

"Come down, please."

Her voice confused the little lion momentarily - he immediately looked around for the person she was talking to… then realized she was talking to him alone.

His lady mother was not smiling, but her intonation was gentle. She didn't like him climbing, and if she caught him at heights like rooftops and sheer cliffs, her eyes would hold a look that made Rykar's blood feel cold.

That hollow wash of northern iciness was worse than talking to lords - and the gods-damned monkey made every effort not to be caught.

Slowly climbing down the knotted rigging, showing his mother that he was being careful, Rykar tried to think of something that would explain him being up there to begin with. But it had to be perfect - his mother read thoughts like a seer - and he just could not concentrate on climbing safely and building the perfect excuse; as he stepped to his mother, the monkey opted for an honest redirection.

"Am I in trouble?"

Rykar had scrunched one side of his face as he peered up to his mother, knowing he was wearing the face she always grinned at.

It was working - he could see she was struggling to keep a serious look; but he did not want to tell her he knew or else she would try even harder.

"There will have to be _some_ sort of punishment."

The young lion started to groan, then ate it because complaint meant more floors to scrub or stalls to muck or - he shivered - laundry… with_ girls_.

He closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate.

"Yes, mother." He sounded thoroughly put-out, exhaling the two words - stretching them longer than they had any right to be.

Rykar heard a light scoff that gained to an equally light laughter and immediately thought of the annoying laundry girls. But realized the laughing was right in front of him, from his lady mother. He cracked one eye open, as though she were volatile and might suddenly explode, and felt warm in the grin he found instead.

Both little lions adored their mother's smile; would do most anything to see her wear it; considered it something of a triumph when it lead to Lord Tywin wearing one of his own.

In truth, his mother disarmed him and made him feel invincible at the same time. He wondered then if his lord father ever felt the same way and knew from how the old lion sometimes looked at her that yes, yes he did.

"I want to go with father," he babbled impatiently, "I want to kill the dragons!"

His excitement died right there. She wasn't supposed to know that he knew…

He quickly looked away and teetered on his feet as though the words were no more than imagined.

Fingers brushed through his hair, tucking hanks of it behind his ears, and Rykar's eyes fluttered in his contentment at his mother's touch.

She was magic that way; could always cure his sadness or hurt or impatience with a brush of her fingers or a few loving words or the warmest of hugs. Her love could fix anything, he found, and he was glad she was his. Even if he had to share her with Tysan.

Rykar then felt the soft skin of her fingertips gently tug his chin upward.

Instead of her wearing an angry look, she was smiling in the small lopsided way that she always did when she told he and Ty a secret.

He was excited again.

"I have need of you elsewhere, ser... but... Oh, I don't know..."

Her words trailed off into nothing. She looked away from _him_ now, her face so serious and concerned.

_This must be important_...

"I'll go, mother! Where? Where do you need me to go?!"

Rykar was almost falling over himself to get the answer, stopping short of scaling her gown to get closer to that illusive order.

His father told him he was too big now to do that, he said, _"You're a Lannister, not an Arryn, you will not clamber over your mother like a milksop."_ Rykar didn't know what that meant, not really, but the look of repulsion on his lord father's face was enough to convince him he did not want to be one - whatever it was.

The little lion was fidgety until he felt his mother's magic again; her fingers in his hair helped guide him into her embrace. Rykar hugged her back as hard as he could, then relaxed when her other hand rubbed big circles on his back.

He liked that part.

Both his mother and his father hugged with the circles, but more often it was his mother.

Lady Sansa gently rubbed the pads of her thumb and forefinger over the ridges of his ear, offering a soothing pattern.

He liked that too.

Mostly Rykar liked things fast, he liked to run and hated being still. Tysan had patience, where he did not. But when his mother showed him that particular affection, the world slowed and was easy to understand. He could stop himself and not feel antsy and actually want to listen to conversation.

_Magic_.

Sansa placed a hand on either shoulder of her son, tenderly placed him back a step, and looked once more at his face.

Rykar was a boy very much like how she remembered both Robb and Arya: quick to ignite their temper, unequivocally loyal, and frighteningly brave. He had her eyes, but his face was very much Lannister. His boyishly smug smile was Jaime's in miniature, his six year old calm-fury was every bit Tywin - and had been known to send knights and lords scurrying.

"You are needed in the North, Rykar, both you and your brother. They've sent most of their men south to defend the capital, and the West is secure-"

"I'm to be Lord, mother," he nodded with as much adult seriousness a six-year-old could muster, "I should protect them."

His mother smiled in a way that was not true, it was sad even, but she spoke before he could question it.

"Of course, young ser," Sansa whispered, once again tucking a golden curl behind his ear.

"When do we leave, mother?" excitement almost becoming flailing in the boy, "Will I get a real sword? I'll need a real one to fight."

"Soon," was all she said, pulling her child into her embrace once more.

Rykar was looking way up to his mother, his eyes expectant in their silent plea for an answer to his other question. She was serious again, this time all the way, and the little lion felt his hopes plummet - his eyes shutting seemingly in time to the descent of his wish.

"You will bring your request to your father, young ser - it will be _his_ decision you have to win."

It was strange that his lids were still heavy, even under the renewal of hope, but his mouth was unaffected.

The lion, the wolf, the monkey - it didn't matter the animal, the smile of the boy was genuine and true; a telling awe for the love of his mother.

...yet toothy and feral - a sly contradiction - for the love of adventure.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Lady Sansa stood looking over one of the lower battlements, watching the large procession marching up the lengthy incline under the many portcullis, and through the extensive sally port that would eventually grant access to main yards of Casterly Rock.

The parade of banners sported amongst them included: dragons, krakens, horses, and golden fists and were held by the hordes of men who had choked the coastline from Faircastle to the Shield Islands.

Lannisport was surrounded; besieged by a silent wall of impenetrable sea-fare moored as tight to the shore as possible.

There had been no attack.

When the ships assembled themselves, Sansa ordered the evacuation of nonessentials from Lannisport. It was decision agreed upon and planned before Tywin left for King's Landing.

"Why not fight on the water?" she had asked her husband.

"Why give them what they want?" he had replied. "Let them fight on land, through buildings," Tywin continued, "Lannisport's remaining levy is unmatched, and they will prove formidable on their own ground. This is your home, Sansa," Tywin gently draped his fingers at the nape of her neck and drew her close, into his warmth, into his stony voice, "Let the bloody cravens come to you."

And come they had. They arrived in overwhelming numbers, but that was all they had done for more than a sennight. Until they had finally sent word to the castle.

The invaders were looking to treat.

"Who are they, do you know?" Sansa asked the man beside her without taking her eyes away from the lengthy approach of the new Queen's delegates.

Ser Daven Lannister stood to her right. Commander of Lannisport's conscripted men, he was the man Lord Tywin relied upon to lead their men and defend his home and family. He was also a man Sansa trusted and felt at ease in his rough presence. He was a large man, taller and broader than her husband, but he had a gentleness that reminded her of her father and a humour that was more attuned to Lady Genna than the rest. She felt comfortable with him, a northern kind of comfort, the type Ser Daven seemed apt to reciprocate.

"The Imp-"

"Lord Tyrion," she corrected.

"Apologies, my lady. _Lord Tyrion_ seems to lead them, and from what the ravens say there's a Greyjoy with him." He looked to his lady, smirked, then raised a brow, "The big bastard, they say."

Her face did not betray a thing, though her eyes gentled at the man's attempt to rile her. She simply nodded in acknowledgement and spoke the next question on her mind.

"What of the rumours - the Brotherhood raids?"

"Seems the Lannister name has become something of a trophy, my lady. Some have taken to offering the usurpers our heads as appeasement." He shifted his weight and cleared his throat. "And that's talk from as close as Golden Grove."

Sansa turned to the man and spoke in a tone more befitting her husband, "Calm yourself, ser, lest you do the work for them."

Ser Daven smiled inwardly at her words. The power of influence and time were freely wrought on his lady. She sounded more like Lord Tywin as the years plodded on, but it was not until war was declared that she transitioned into her own lion completely. It was what the people of Lannisport, and the people of the West needed - and it was what she gave; that same confidence, natural and uncompromised, that radiated from their Great Lion.

The burly commander kept his eyes on the approaching caravan, raised a brow once more, and stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"I'm the pretty one, you know," he greased his charm and looked to Lady Lannister, "Might be this head makes some heathen quite rich."

He tried to hold onto his seriousness, but it was no use. The look Lady Sansa painted herself with was somewhere amidst disbelief and outright consideration - both her courtly compliments and learned indifference fighting each other for rule.

Then, in a span of barely a heartbeat and all at once, the Lady of Casterly Rock lost whatever instance of humour she had. Sinking back to, and refocusing on, her actuality.

Her children were gone, hidden away. Her home was under siege, at the precipice of battle. Her lord, her husband, had lost the capital; lost his freedom. And he would, as they had discussed prior to his leaving - huddled naked and close under covers, speaking to one another with lips upon skin; in the dark of night when her fingers and toes would become cold despite the warmth of the room and the bed she shared - lose his life.

The truth of it all butchered the little bit of levity Ser Daven thought to give her, as he had since the nightmare began.

"Bring them to the hall, ser," Sansa intoned icily, turning on the ball of her foot to leave.

Daven Lannister recognized the change immediately and adjusted his attitude to meet her rigidity.

He bowed to his liege, "Yes, my lady."

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The dais in the main reception hall of Casterly Rock towered over the petitioners floor. It was no more than a deception created of angles, steps, and the enormity of furnishing, but the effect was always the same; allowing for instant leverage when those summoned to the hall stood in awe of such dynamics.

Tyrion entered the grand chamber without hesitation, his footfalls aimed at his destination, and his eyes aimed at his conversational target - his large, silent, Greyjoy companion in tow.

The Ironborn walked with a minute scuff; he was clad in dull black armour from head to toe, and though his eyes were pitched in shadows under his helm, one could clearly feel his gaze - and the forward aim in which it was directed.

At whom it was directed.

Lady Sansa sat on the ornate golden chair, no less than a throne, that Lord Tywin had commissioned for his first wife. She wore a gown of deep grey, trimmed in crimson with bright gold embroidered accents that seemed make her and her surroundings shimmer - as though she was perched upon the sun itself.

Tyrion had heard talk from traders and merchants over the years, those coming from Lannisport, all speaking of the Lady of the Rock and how she ruled the West. And as he approached his _mother _, in a hall known to rival that of King's Landing, he knew the room was no longer the attraction.

A dais, stairs, multiple angles, and a chair had absolutely no claim on the astonishing power the mere presence of this woman held. And when she spoke, any doubt of even the most level-minded nature was cast aside for its uselessness.

The environment of the large room changed as it filled with every manner of man, in every manner of dress: from fully plated soldiers to sailors and foreign warriors in no more than rags. The air curdled to that of sweat and stink; the funk found only when people live in close quarters. The concern, however, was in the sheer number of bodies that continued to stream through the heavy double doors.

She would _not_ house and entertain an entire army.

Lady Sansa raised her hand and the Lannister men, the banner bearers edging the room, drummed the blunt pole-ends into the stone floor - a solid steady thump until the chatter and bodily shifting ceased.

Sansa addressed only one man in a room full of them, "Your men are welcome to camp beyond the bailey, my lord, not in my hall."

Tyrion hinted a look of genuine embarrassment, "Apologies, Lady Sansa, most are unfamiliar with the finer points of propriety."

"Be that as it may," she answered coolly, "you will rectify the offense before I am prone to believe it deliberate."

_Gods, she's turned into my father!_, Tyrion's mind reeled. But he also knew that with the game at hand and the rats underfoot, Lady Sansa had no other option than to shoulder into her thickest armour and wield her deadliest weapons with all the skill and agility she owned.

This was what Lord Tywin prepared her for - and what flawless precision his father had crafted.

"As you wish, my lady," he said respectfully.

Tyrion nodded once, then spun to speak to several men of varying garments, and after a momentary rumble of discourse, a great many of the men began their exit.

"I also have no intention of holding court." Lady Sansa addressed Tyrion directly as she stood and pressed on, "Choose your contingency, my lord, and we will commence in the lord's solar."

"Lady Sansa," Tyrion inquired with a smile, "I would request food, perhaps drink for my men, if it please you. The journey is a long one to the castle, as you must know."

There was no movement on her face, no hint of compassion or even disdain.

"We were rationed for war, my lord. Then our ports were laid to siege," she narrowed her eyes and spoke in a brisk tone of derision, "What makes you think I can spare you a meal?"

Tyrion lost his smile, lost the charisma he thought to bestow - the intimidation of both the woman and the hall combined into something restrictive, and he found it removed his words as well.

"Broth, bread, mead."

Lady Lannister was already turning to leave as her last words dropped heavily into the room. Her four guards flowed to trail in her wake, leaving Ser Daven to serve as intermediary once the Imp chose his men.

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** A huge thank you to my beta, content developer, researcher, sounding-board, and internet life-partner: dealbreaker19 **

_(Any mistakes are mine alone. I tend to fiddle and tweak - up to posting)_


	5. Sansa pt Ib

***Note:** This chapter contains allusions of abuse. Please be aware of your own sensibilities and proceed accordingly.*

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_ The Lord's Solar_, Tyrion thought, _his lord father's_ _solar_ had not changed much in the time since he was a child. Not that he was allowed audience in this sanctuary, but he had been a clever enough boy to see the inside of it more than once.

Lady Sansa was standing near the large hearth at the side of the room, an area which had obviously been designated for debate and deliberation; there were carefully placed chairs and tables to accommodate at least half a dozen bodies. None of whom would be members of her own council - a stipulation of the crown, to negotiate solely with the Regent in the West. The lords of her assembly thought the Queen meant to seek weakness in their liege, and if such was the case, they also knew her error.

"Just the two of you?" Sansa's voice did not show it, but her eyes widened minutely in a sign of disbelief.

"Actually, just one," Tyrion glanced back at the large figure behind him, then returned to his host, "I have every faith that you and I are more than sufficient to negotiate a resolution, my lady."

Lady Sansa nodded demurely and offered nothing else by way of pleasantry. Yet when she set to speak, her next words were stepped over by those of one of her shields.

"Show some respect _squid_," the Ser Royene stepped out menacingly, addressing the massive man in the dull inky plate, " Remove your helm in the presence of Lady Lannister."

When the large man said nothing and moved not one muscle to comply, the second and third of her ferocious guards stepped around her to join the first, while the fourth gently tugged her back from the impending mayhem.

The air was thick with potential violence, and as soon as Tyrion made to staunch the tension, all four Lannister guards unsheathed their long swords.

The answer to their call was the kraken freeing his great sword in a strangely beautiful, strangely familiar maneuver that involved the full stretch of his arm and a bodily tilt forward.

Sansa visibly relaxed as such a display sunk fully into the reminiscence that it had snagged; her shoulders no longer tensed, her features no longer lined in severity. She laid a hand on the vambrace of her closest knight.

"Stand down, Ser Royene," she soothed, stepping forward through the clutch of protection. "All of you, stand down."

The instruction seemed directed toward every man in that room, even the helmed man lowered his huge blade.

Lady Sansa took another step forward, first looking at Tyrion, pleased to see on his face a placid look of trust, then concentrated her focus on the stubborn giant she was now looking up at.

"Please, remove your helm..." she stepped a little closer - calmly, easy, so as not to overly disturb the man, " Please, Sandor."

The name tumbled from her tongue as though it were something just waiting to be freed. She did not smile, but it didn't much matter, the young woman's acknowledgement was more a welcome than was expected.

When a snort reverberated from behind that nondescript helm, Sansa had to bow her head in order to hide her self-indulgent smirk.

And upon his deliberate removal of the offensive armament, Lady Lannister held in her relief.

Before her stood her history. No longer the gaunt man of her most recent memories, but the fierce non-ser from her past; that same warrior with a perpetual flush of agitation wrung across his face. And while his pallor had improved, she was taken slightly at the angry red scar that started on his forehead, vertically bisected his remaining eyebrow, and came to an end at the ridge of his sharp cheekbone.

It was the Hound she knew, give or take the new signs of battle and survival. It was the man she hoped would live.

Her investment. _Her friend_.

Looking from Sandor to Tyrion, Sansa's responsibilities reasserted themselves. Her safety was unquestionably sound in that moment; though the safety of her family was paramount and still uncertain.

Walking to one of the chairs by the large hearth, the Lady of the Rock addressed her knights.

"Wait outside-"

"We can't leave you alone with a kingslayer and a butcher, my lady." This time it was Ser Lanning that spoke his gruff protestation over the wishes of his liege.

Her tone was bloodless, "You can, and you will."

"Forgive me, my lady," the man argued, "but Lord Tywin-"

Her inflection plummeted to something deadly, "Obey me or find yourself removed from my service. If you serve Lord Tywin solely, I implore you to seek him out currently to air your grievance."

The threat made mention of the man she knew to be a prisoner; it had also made her angry in her despair over that same revelation. Her breathing was becoming shallow at that flux of emotion; she had to fist her hands in an effort to maintain restraint.

Her bones felt heavy. She was so weary, and already tired at the notion of loss that was surely to follow, feeling the crush of weight from the burdens currently upon her.

A handful of moments were all the knights took to silently confirm their command before making their way to the large entryway and stepping out.

"They wear grey..." Tyrion broke the quiet and casually hoisted himself onto a chair as though he was an invited emissary and not an enemy besieging her waterways and pressing to treat.

He looked at her with the coy grin and raised uneven brows she remembered so fondly, "Oh, what _have_ you done?"

"Not grey - gold." The words rumbled out from behind the two friends. Sandor stepped into their view, digging for a pouch that had been secured under his tasset.

Approaching the lady of the castle, Sandor freed the prize he was working at and handed the bag to the woman now within arm's reach.

Sansa exhibited no hesitation in collecting the proffered satchel; much like their encounter in the godswood years ago, it was as if no time had passed between them. There was a trust there, something inherent, something obvious even to the casual observer - to Tyrion, of course.

The bag was weighty and jingled like coins were within. Yet when she opened and tipped out the contents, it took a moment to realize that the few loose rectangles were no tender of known denomination, and when the rest - a connected cluster of those same rectangles - slid into her palm, she was speechless.

It was what was left of her necklace… of that finery that once defined her as Tywin Lannister's wife, then defined her again as a calculating player much the caliber of that same man.

Even with a cursory inspection, she could see that most of the piece remained intact - the diamonds were gone, but the large ruby was still there. Everything removed or dismantled was carefully, thoughtfully worked apart...

Sansa looked up at the man she had dowered so heavily in, financially and otherwise - really looked at him; ever so ferocious, ever so strong, yet still harbouring the unfamiliar calm she witnessed once before on a cold winter's day. And though the settling serenity was so foreign in her eyes, it looked almost natural on Sandor, and she could easily glean that the trait now helped to define _him_.

She dropped her view back to the finery in her hand, and it was to it that she spoke with a hint of awe.

"You took only what you needed."

Sandor's response was a huffed-out grunt, but it was only meant to regain her attention. The tactic worked, and he watched as she raised her unreadable eyes to him once again.

"And it will be repaid," was all he said.

Her voice and her emotions were well shuttered as he would only expect from the wife of the Great Lion - though he still expected useless flourishes from the little bird he had tried so vehemently to terrify them out of. It was an effort to remember that this current entity was no longer the same girl.

But it was her words that made that particular distinction blindingly clear.

"If you feel that is a requirement of your conscience, so be it. But know it is not a demand that I make of you."

Sandor stood static, blinking at her without saying another word, absorbing hers.

Another handful of years had proven her grown even more, her edge was sharp and her mind equally so. No, this little bird no longer chirped, no longer parroted the pretty words and phrases meant to please princes. This wolf in lion's clothing was far more dangerous, far more cautious, and every bit a challenge.

After a few heartbeats, he nodded with another grunt and stepped quietly back into a shadow along the wall of the great solar.

It was his silent cue for the treaty to begin between the most unlikely of Lannisters.

Lady Sansa walked to the large desk in the room, depositing the necklace and briefly quilling a request for the jeweler; she then walked back to take her place almost directly in front of the Hand of the Queen.

She sat straight and waited for the half-man to begin.

_Let them come to you, always._

_Keep them guessing, always._

_Retain an advantage by any means, always._

_Family first… always._

Her lessons came to the forefront, those that were learned and those that were earned. Every element of survival she knew to that day was working together, drawing from each other, and cast a strategy clearly in her mind.

Tyrion began as she had been assured he would, her patience was second to none, though his words were out of impatience, and more than a little arrogant.

"As you can tell, my lady, the Queen is more than serious about her birthright. Her manpower is unstoppable and her dragons are a powerful force."

Sansa's demeanour remained elusive as she dissected the man. His words felt of bravado, but there were half truths and assumption thrown in at what seemed to be a whim.

He was trying to coerce by way of intimidation and Lady Lannister could not help but wonder if Tyrion forgot to whom she was married.

"You have one and half beasts, my lord-" she began, nerved and icy. It was not unknown that the black beast was cut down and the white one would never fly again. In the course of days, the mysticism of dragons had been thoroughly debunked.

"Ah, _not_ a lord," he murmured almost to himself.

"-and your desert warriors? How will they cope in a winter or simply the North?"

"Regardless of what happens on the mainland, my lady, it will be the scourge of the coast that will see the Queen prevail - the bulk of the Ironborn and the hired ships of Essos are unstoppable nautically. As you have experienced."

Sansa's features belied nothing. Not a blink or a twitch or a smile. She simply raised her chin and rose to her feet. Without a word, Lady Lannister implored her guests to follow as she walked with a mesmerizing grace to the balcony of the large solar.

At the height they were perched, the three had an unimpeded view of the cluster of longships, bulky war galleys, and waspy raiders that loomed in a crescent around Lannisport and her fleet.

It was Sandor who first snorted in disbelief.

Tyrion looked up at the tall man to trace his gaze - and huffed his own amusement.

"You're a cagey piece of work, aren't you?" the half-man breathed with the hint of a smile. His statement's aim was out over the rail of the balcony, but was more truthfully directed to the young woman behind him.

It took some squinting, and an elevated line of sight, but at the very cusp of the horizon was a distinct black line. A black line that had no natural right to be there... let alone be moving.

_Seems most forget we have just as much wood and water as the rest of 'em_: words that proved Captain Tavver had the right of it.

Sansa turned, leaving the two men to contemplate what they were seeing.

Even at a distance the line was impressively long; it took nothing of skill to know that what lay on the horizon was enough to easily challenge the Targaryen show of force - their failed bullying threat.

"Who do you think it is? Baratheon?"

Sandor looked down to the Hand who was squinting as he calculated what he was seeing.

"Doesn't matter _who_, Imp. Only that they're there."

Tyrion listened to the Hound's armour softly clank and shift as he walked back inside and took a moment to himself before following.

"Surely you don't want war, Sansa," he said as he climbed to his seat across from her once again.

"No, I have had my taste and fill of war." The bitter copper was an illusion on her tongue, but it was there all the same. "Though I will gladly fight and die for my children."

There was an uncomfortable creak of plate at the mention of her self-sacrifice. Ignoring it, she looked at Tyrion, her eyes flashing with admiration.

"_All_ of them," she whispered.

His face pinched and he could not keep her stare. Tyrion cared for Lady Sansa, and that was his failing, his deficiency as a representative of the crown - and she _knew _it.

The woman in question inhaled deeply through her nose, speaking around the gap between them. The chasm where the notion of war and bloodshed fell, each party recognizing without stating, that avenue was never more than a sad show of pretense.

"And the Northmen? What of the men from the Riverlands?"

Sansa's inquiry was not forceful, but was said in a way that allowed no room for misunderstanding. She wanted to know a death toll, the number of captives, a count of men that would be used against her.

"There were casualties, of course, but the bulk of those men have been left to retreat - to go home." This time there was no hubris in his words, simply the truth - albeit a heavily refined one. "The point is to _avoid_ sinking into more years of war, no?"

But in muddling his honesty, Tyrion only served to threaten once again - to anger once again - and with it came a crack in Lady Sansa's facade. It was a glimpse of fury and weakness, and if she were treating with any other man they would have taken her words as a strike, as the flung hostility it was.

"Tell me, my lord," she seethed through her teeth, "Against a queen and her purchased soldiers, what do you think will run out first - my gold or the goodwill of the Iron Bank of Braavos?"

She immediately knew what she had done - the error she had made. Her mouth clamped shut and an angry blush rose up her neck. Sansa was furious at herself, but the Hand of the Queen was calm, his features were not ticking in calculation for retaliation.

Lowering her eyes, Lady Lannister took the time he gave to control herself once more.

"I have no inclination to fight, Tyrion," she said solemnly to her hands.

"I know, Sansa, and you do not _have _to."

His words were tender - spoken in the gust of truth she had been looking for to begin with - but even in the overt nicety was an underlying potential for deception.

Suspicion in its truest and most volatile embodiment was a well learned attribute; a gift to his wife from the Lion of Lannister.

She raised her eyes to Tyrion, confidently, expectantly.

"You cannot tell me your queen does not harbour the desire to rid Westeros of Eddard Stark's lineage, even more so to pay blood for blood for the designs against her family by Tywin Lannister." Her entire demeanour hardened again, "I'm sorry Tyrion, but if you tell me otherwise, you're a liar."

Tyrion exhaled audibly, not tired, no, but the exhaustion of trying to convey the truth without giving up his foothold was an exercise worthy of any tourney champion.

"The Queen is young but she is far from stupid and untested," he looked at Sansa with eyes that told her she should feel a connection to what he was saying. "Yes, your father helped lead the rebellion against Aerys, but she also knows _why_."

At his words, stories from her childhood flitted through her memory: her aunt... her grandfather... her uncle...

She snapped to the present when Tyrion worked himself from his seat and stood before her. Clasping her hand in his, an unexpected gesture, he spoke with such warmth it all but destroyed her.

"You are regent in the West by marriage, in the North by blood. You are tied by family to the Riverlands, the Vale, and the bloody Wall!... Sansa, you are _not_ a pawn," Tyrion bent awkwardly at the knees to look her directly in the eyes she had turned downward, "and I dare say this is no revelation."

She nodded to herself as Tyrion let go her fingers and rounded to the table holding the wine service, pouring himself a glass.

"Sansa, you are safe. My little brothers are safe. The Queen will _not_ seek retribution through your blood." He took a drink of his wine and returned to his seat. Once comfortable he spoke again, all arrogance and pride, "Nothing will change for you, _mother_. You will keep the West, and the North, but," Tyrion dropped his humour, "the Queen will keep you."

"Define _keep_, _son_."

"Your fealty, of course. Your assurance of assistance in convincing the rest to bend the knee. Like you, Queen Daenerys has no will for war. But if pushed, she will push back-"

Sansa became distant and austere, carrying a tone Tyrion remembered from his youth - from his father, "Tyrion, tell me _why_ the lives of myself and my children are being spared."

"You _live_. Not enough?!" Sandor barked from the dimmest part of the room.

Sansa did not spare him a look, her hard gaze piercing her _son_.

Tyrion took a deep breath and seemed to be in pain.

"Because, you aren't like _him_. Your children aren't like _me_." He leaned his head back as though his thoughts would spill and he had to adjust to save them.

She considered him, absorbed his words, and felt the pit of her stomach go cold.

"Your brothers are third and fourth born and will not challenge your claim, Tyrion." It was said with palpable sincerity, but the purpose of her statement was to coax out the information she knew she did not want to hear.

The Imp smiled his crooked smile, he knew her game.

Blinking slowly, Tyrion spoke with an air of whimsy, "The continuation of my life requires three things; that I remove myself from succession in the West, and that I do not marry, nor sire children."

Sandor snorted at the last stipulation.

Sansa was still completely focused on Tyrion, the images and calculations were piling up in her mind, "And what of Ser Kevan's wife and children?" She was thinking of his daughter.

Tyrion again looked pained and, without breaking eye contact, he shook his head slowly.

This time there was an element of desperation in her voice, "His wife is not a Lannister, their children..." she was edging on anger, "Spare them Tyrion, if that's what saves me, why doesn't it save them?"

He noticed her inquiry left out the children of his aunt Genna, but, he smiled inwardly, his _mother_ only had so much leeway for Freys.

The way he addressed her introduced a new kind of callousness, an inner deadening of him that had never been there before, "They are not _Starks _either. They hold no name or claim of value to the people of this land. Sansa, to the people that really matter - regardless of what they may say amongst company - your name is a fable, the North is highly accountable, and your father and brother are now legends of their own."

Sansa closed her eyes and fought the screams and tears she could feel in herself struggling to be freed.

Once again her name would lead to condemnation and the forfeiture of life. It was an endless line of needless suffering.

_There will always be suffering, in one form or another, waiting for you in this life._

_What do you choose?_

_Fight._

She snapped her eyes open, "Spare them." There was not one _fraction _of negotiation in her tone, "If your Queen wishes to puppet me, she will be wise to spare innocents for the sake of revenge."

"This is something you could bring to the Queen personally when you swear fealty for the West and the North."

"This is something that will be agreed upon _as a condition_ of my fealty, my lord."

"I am not a-"

Sansa's mind flew into a panic, buzzing in its jumble of images and nightmares as she recognized the piece of the puzzle she had so willfully ignored since the fall of the capital: she would be required to go back to King's Landing. She would be there… _He _would be...

Another man connected to her, doomed to death by the powers that be.

Her mind choked on a spike of anxiety.

Her mouth did not.

"I will not... witness..." she took a shaky breath, and laid her stony gaze upon her _son_, "His death, Tyrion, I will not be forced to watch another-"

"No. No, of course not," Tyrion tried to smile thoughtfully, but it came out a pathetic grimace.

"This is a start," he said as a form of cover, "A good start. If it please, my lady, I will send a raven this evening and look to continue talks tomorrow. I am sure your councilmen have frenzied themselves awaiting your word."

"I will not be bending the knee for the North," Sansa said, half distracted yet fully invested in her words - in her attempt to clear as much as she could in one sitting, "The Blackfish has been elected by the northern lords for that task-"

"Tomorrow," he said gently.

She looked at him then, at her friend. _At her friends_, as her view flicked to Sandor. She nodded in acquiescence.

It was something of an invite for the large man. That brief look, that acknowledgement of him as more than merely a sword and an intimidating presence within the room.

Sandor stepped forward and watched as the little bird - _no_, the Lady Lannister - quickly stood up in practiced anticipation of his next move toward her. Against her. It was a realization - whether it was terrible or perfect, he could not decide - that she had been thoroughly conditioned to such an extent.

A physical demonstration of self preservation, and Clegane felt a pinch of guilt in that this type of wary vigilance, though not necessarily distrust, had probably begun with him all those years ago.

To think on those memories made him punchy and hollow. It may as well have been another lifetime, another story altogether.

But it had happened, those fated paths, and he had followed them. Not blindly, mind, but thoughtlessly for the most part. And though it took no effort to amble along without care, the results were more than compelling. For those roads and markers, those forks and choices, had lead him to exactly where he stood now: before _her_.

In a careful measure, Sandor slowly lowered to a knee and gently swung his giant sword between him and his saviour, _his banker, his backer_, laying it at her feet - never once removing his eyes from Sansa's.

There were no voices left in the room, the silence taking on its own noise.

Lady Sansa knew this pledge; had seen it in the North on the smiling faces of men, in the South amidst looks of fear, and here in the West with greedy, knowing grins.

Loyalty.

But what she saw on the face of the man in front of her was the purest form of such allegiance. Neither coerced nor forced, but a decision made inwardly - by the mutual contentment of the mind and soul.

There was no material price you could pay for that type of devotion; no gold of any colour, no jewel of any size.

"Before I accept your sword, Sandor, know my terms and make your choice," she began.

Her chin angled up a tiny amount, and her voice flitted with the same softness Clegane had heard for years in the murky depths of sleep - and for those days on the Trident when he had skirted the horrible promise of a slow, fevered death.

"Your protection will not be for me, but for my sons." She watched for anything - disgust, annoyance, anger - there was only impassiveness. "They need neither a father nor a nurse-"

"What is it you want me to be?" he snorted, his usual ready impatience begging for air.

"Sandor, I want you to be yourself-"

"I'm no man to influence children," he growled in his familiar way, "You _know_ this."

She was unfazed by his gruffness. Careful to maintain his eye, her inflection serious, "You are who they need, and you are who I trust."

Sansa watched as Sandor's jaw worked and flexed, his eyes narrowing and widening as he deliberated, until finally he shrugged. And it was that accustomed action that eased her mind.

"If it please you," he said.

Her shoulders relaxed at his agreement, she then tilted her head to the large man, "Your queen will allow your dismissal?"

"I offered no promises to her, I did not live for _her_."

Sandor's words were sneered, but Sansa could easily tell there was no venom behind them, no contempt seeking her as a target. The profound depth from which they were spoken was readily apparent to her.

She smiled at him - the same subtle grin she offered in the godswood the second time they had parted ways. It was the pleasantry offered to a friend, and the acceptance of his sword to her service.

As Sandor made to stand, Tyrion offered further context to a story he was at the periphery of.

"The Queen had meant to have our Dog culled, at first. Though, he fought for his life," Tyrion absently brushed his fingers over his own mangled face, "...and won."

"How was it you two aligned?" Sansa truly couldn't help but ask.

The large man began to open his mouth, but the half-man used _his_ personal strength to overpower him.

"Allow _me_, Clegane, else we'll be here till morning ."

Tyrion chuckled at the snarl he received for his interruption.

"Finding himself funded," the half-man grinned at Sansa, the same smile he would tease her with from across tables at feasts in King's Landing, "Clegane bought plate and passage to Braavos. Boring, boring, boring," he sighed, "contracted with the Golden Sons. Boring, boring, boring. Fought for the Queen in her army... Defended his life and became prettier... Now we're here."

There was an awkward pause, as though the air had been stretched taut, pressing against the trio like an uncomfortable skin.

"And you became… _friends_?" she said without bothering to hide her doubt.

Sansa watched as Sandor tensed in a wave that started midpoint on his armour and lead straight to the sneer on this mouth and the deep pull of his brow.

"No," Tyrion said, shedding every bit of humour, "He wished me dead, truth be told."

The lady of the castle flicked her eyes to the large man in question, observing his silent admission then returned to the half-man who was talking - sitting once again, leaning forward in earnest.

"Wished that for quite some time. Not that I blame him, " his voice was drifting, unmoored on the ocean of this recollections.

Looking between both men, Sansa could see the stirring of something painful. Something that had been rectified as best as it could be amidst them, yet still raw.

"What… Why?..." she didn't know to which of the two she should be asking the question, either way she was concerned, even more so when Tyrion answered.

"It's not a pretty story-"

"_Tell her_," came the command from Sandor.

This version of him was the terrifying Hound that Sansa remembered, a version so fatally authentic she was unsure she wanted to know Tyrion's tale.

She watched the Hand of the Queen worry his lip in his teeth; trepidation - yet another young characteristic worn on her old friend. Even if there had been cause for hesitation, the Tyrion she knew while Joffrey lived would offer the farce of courage before admitting to anything less.

"Your Hound hated me for what he'd heard so many years ago - in rumour and talk around the Rock - that I'd given my wife to my father to punish and saved myself. He never knew I was part of that punishment." It was said like stone, and he was getting lost in the memory.

His wife? Sansa knew she had been offered in marriage to Tyrion, and that he had rejected, but she was at a loss to his confession of a previous bride.

"You see," his voice was a ghost, "I was three and ten when Jaime and I came across a girl who was surely going to meet the worst kind of ravaging by the men who were about to set upon her."

He paused a moment, swallowed, and set his jaw.

"Jaime chased off the men, and I helped the girl. I took her to an inn and tended to her," he huffed a tiny laugh, "and _she _tended to _me_."

Tyrion blinked and looked down at his hands, "I loved her. There and then. She looked at me and saw nothing of what my father had always told me I was, _and I fucking loved her for it_."

"I'm a Lannister despite what Lord Tywin says, I had gold, and I paid a septon to marry us. We stayed at that inn as husband and wife, and for the only time in my life I felt as tall as any man." He laughed again, but this time was parched and desolate.

He took a fortifying breath through what was left of his nose and cleared his throat.

"The septon feared my father far more than his gods, and his confession ensured we were found and brought back here.

"I was beside myself," he whispered, "Until Jaime sat me down and told me the girl was a whore. That he had paid a maiden whore to make me a man."

Tyrion looked up at her then, and Sansa's heart bled. The hurt and turmoil in his eyes...

"He told me he could prove it and took me to my lord father." His vision did not sway, but it became so very intense.

"Lord Tywin showed me the parchment voiding my marriage, then dragged me by my collar to the east barracks..."

Sansa's breath began to quicken, her teeth clenched, and she felt an ominous prickle start at the back of her neck.

Again she watched her friend become washed away in a current of horror - worse than that, of remembrance. And Lady Sansa knew all too well the toll of swimming against those types of waves.

"Each and every man in that barracks took her," his eyes watered and his voice became wet and nasally through the hole where his nose should have been, "She was a purchased courtesy, a favour paid for by their lord. He encouraged them, praised them in their degradation." He looked at Sansa then and sobbed, broken, and undone, "The final act of which w…," his voice wavered, intoned to almost mute, "...w-was _me_..."

The room fell again to an uncommon quiet, the sea also having seemed to hold its breath at the story being unfurled.

Sansa looked past Tyrion to the wall behind him, not trusting her own emotions to view either man, offering her friend a reprieve to collect himself.

He took the time he needed to recover, there was no pressure or ridicule directed toward him, a luxury he knew would only be afforded by the people in that room.

"I know now the look she wore was that of terror, not pleasure. I know what _he_ had done." Tyrion spoke again quietly calm, grim though the statement was. "The night I left King's Landing I meant to kill him. Jaime pulled whatever debt he needed to help me escape, but my freedom was no match for his conscience. He held me still in a black cramped corridor and told me the truth about my wife."

Tyrion looked at Sansa dead-on. There was not one thread of warmth in him.

"Her name was Tysha. She was the daughter of a crofter, happened upon by the sons of Lannister - married to one, betrayed by another, and raped by a hundred men at the orchestration of their father."

It was a dirge of the worst kind, one of broken love; more so, one that sounded rehearsed.

Sansa dropped her eyes to the floor, her teeth bared in a grimace she was unable to hold back; fighting to balance the agony of both want and necessity, those constantly warring divisions of life seeking to overwhelm her.

Her gaze remained averted, she felt the pool of time grow stagnant and start to drown her. Sansa slowly moved, first to step, then to kneel in front of Tyrion; her hands blindly sought his, her guts tightened and churned, her heart was erratic in fits of pain and sorrow.

"I'm… so sorry," she forced out. Forced herself to give him her voice, forced herself to finally meet his eye.

"Saying you're sorry _implies you carry fault_," he teased sadly.

Sansa looked at her friend as the tears she struggled so hard to keep buried rolled over her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth.

"You want me to _hate _him, Tyrion, and I _can't_," she ducked her head and sobbed into her hands where they clung to his. "_That's_ why I'm sorry."

When she looked to him again, she saw distinctly the flash of unmitigated rage that was eaten by unmitigated anguish as his own tears trailed down the pits and scars of his face.

Tyrion tightened his jaw, thrashing the wish to both despise and admire the woman before him.

His friend. His mother.

He knew he was asking too much of her. They were all fractured in some way, but she more than most. Sansa had more pieces scattered about than all of them combined, and he all but cornered her in his demand that she divide those shards again - break them into even smaller pieces.

What a selfish prick he was.

Tyrion juddered bodily as he made to stand, wiping his face on his sleeve, and freeing the woman who wept her sympathy and solidarity into his hands; her tears in his palms, his forgiveness of her - the currency of their deal.

They each stood; there would be no more negotiation or conversation that day. And as he gathered his bearings and set to walk past his mother, Tyrion gripped an elegant hand that hung abnormally limp and wayward at her side - there was no contact other than that, there was no power in the two to offer anything more.

Sansa felt the grip of stunted fingers on her hand, then the tight squeeze she knew to be of assurance. It was the same reticent assertion he used on more than one occasion to relieve her doubt in the Red Keep.

..._in that one rudimentary act of communication, he told her she was safe._

She did not watch him leave, could not, but knew when the doors had opened and closed to allow him exit. Her tears kept falling - the visceral impact of the day settling over her like a wet cloak.

"No point crying for the Imp, girl."

Two large hands snaked around each of her upper arms, the strength of those hands turning her to face the other man in the room. The man who became a shadow himself, overlooked amidst the riot of emotion that had claimed her.

But his actions, unthinking and brutish, doused her tribulation in a wave of the potent fury she possessed but rarely displayed.

"Remove your hands from me, Sandor."

Her voice was as steely as her glare and Sandor pulled his hands back cautiously.

Whatever tears that had taken her in the moments prior were forgotten, in their place was something the large man was sure resembled anger.

"I address you without the titles you loathe out of respect for our history, but that in no way allows you the presumption of liberty." It _was _anger and it _was not _even close to being diluted.

She cocked her head, her eyes all the more fiery. "You will show me the same respect - I have titles, you will use them."

He stepped back from his obvious offense; his look somber, though there was no fury in him.

"And you will _not _handle me as you once felt permitted."

There was no plea in her statement; it was a fact - and one that Sandor believed to his bones.

He looked down at her, his face still not showing a shred of anger or annoyance or amusement... or _the Hound_.

"Apologies, my lady."

The words were rusty in his mouth, but the gruff sincerity was not.

Her eyes darted over his face, from ruin to roughshod, anatomizing his candor with cool interest; not letting one single scrap of tell float away - anything that would allow him insight. This had nothing to do with truth or lies, her scrutiny was built of something greater; he felt honoured to have her appraisal. Her approval would be seen on him - as he had seen it on the men and women of the Rock already proudly displaying Lady Sansa's acceptance.

_She's their queen_. That particular truth punched him directly in the throat. _Tywin Lannister married a little bird and cultivated a gods-damn queen_.

Sandor looked at her with such gratitude, such open appreciation, that Sansa could not help but feel its sting. It leveled her indignant posturing and covered her previous outburst with the succinct inflection that was more her manner.

"Your charges are elsewhere. Until their return, you will help in overseeing our leave and travel when the time comes, Sandor - and you will serve as a liaison of sorts once at court. Is this agreeable?"

"Yes," he said immediately, then remembered his reprimand from but a few moments before, "...My lady."

He was honestly trying; it would take time, but his reflex courtesy _would_ fall back into place eventually. Until then, as he looked at the tiniest of glints in the eyes of the serious woman in front of him, he knew he had best get used to being held accountable for any lack of it.

"Might be I should start making those plans now, my lady."

Lady Sansa's face gentled a fraction as her armour was reapplied. It was only momentary, but she looked more like the girl he knew in their life before, if Sandor were to judge.

And what a surprising relief it was to know that not everything had been removed or remade.

"Tomorrow," she said.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Kings Landing was as it always had been to Lady Sansa - utterly forgettable. But her reasons for being there were nothing short of life altering.

She stood before her queen, appropriately reverent, timely in her propriety, and flawless in her elegance. Her fealty had been negotiated, termed, and agreed upon - all that was left was the pomp and show of submission before lords and courtiers who were there for the same reason.

There had been some tense moments of back-and-forth between her and Tyrion, mostly pertaining to the sparing of lives, and then again when the time came to discuss the crown's debt to the Rock.

They wanted it to be, _they assumed it would be_, buried with the deeds of the previous lord, but Sansa would not budge in her insistence that it be honoured. She was as unmoving as the man she called husband, and Tyrion made the effort more than once to remind her as such.

Lady Sansa was formidable in her arbitration and more than a little stifled in her compromise, but her intent was genuine and her compassion for the greater good of the matter was evident.

She was not heartless, no, though she was certainly _not _weak.

Queen Daenerys spoke from atop the dais, from atop her throne. Sitting almost lost amongst the honed points and curvatures, she was small in comparison and cast the image of a child playing queen.

Though it was her eyes that proved her age, and her tone of voice that stated clearly _this _Queen was not engaged in frivolity.

"Regent of both the West and the North-"

Tyrion softly interjected, "My apologies for interrupting Your Grace, Ser Brynden Tully is present and will be speaking on behalf of the North."

The Queen looked squarely at Sansa.

"Why aren't _you _speaking on behalf of your North?"

"The North is not mine to speak for, Your Grace," she chanced a glance to her great uncle, and at the confident incline of his head, she felt a relief, thick and true, wipe away her nervousness, "The North is _not_ the seat of the Lannisters."

There was an uproar in court around her. Sansa distinctly heard a few lords of the West, _new lords in the West_, testing the infancy of their fealty - balking at perceived treachery. She also distinctly observed the Queen not trying to quell the backlash, but notably dissecting it - putting complaint to a face, and that face to a name.

The lords of the West that sat on her council knew her reasons for abstaining from the rule and influence of the North. The only way the West was going to be able to carry forward under the new Targaryen Queen was to sacrifice something she would view as significant.

By removing Rykar from succession and supporting Rickon in claiming the seat, greed is replaced by sentimentality - and _that _is reflected as compassion and compromise on a House wherein those traits had been absent for decades. It is a move indicating positive change more than nepotism, especially when it is forged in such a strong alliance.

The lords of the West, those of the highest standing, those of Lady Sansa's council, each knew the benefit of such a sacrifice… and more so, how it would benefit _them_.

There had been rumblings of a coup when it had been known that Sansa would bend the knee. The younger lords, the lower echelon houses of the Westerlands, thought it was time to remove the name of Lannister from Casterly Rock. But those notions, those men, were cut down as fast as they emerged - actions commanded at the icy nod and approval of Lady Lannister.

As long as Tywin Lannister's youngest sons took breath, there would be Lannisters on the Rock. And those particular Lannisters had the guaranteed protection of North and the Riverlands - and the backing of the Crown.

Survival had been assured, it was now a matter of proving worthy of that consideration - and Sansa vowed to carry as much of that burden for her sons as she possibly could. Give them every advantage she possibly could. Teach them everything she had learned… as much as she possibly could.

The noisy din of the throne room had yet to lighten, the Queen was now viewing her audience with narrowed eyes - those of contempt, not consideration - and at length, she turned her head sharply and gave a terse nod toward the darkness along the outer wall.

The Unsullied.

Their tanned skin lent to the shadows, and it was not until, as one single entity, their spears clashed with their shields, once, then twice, and again and again, that one was reminded that those stock-still forms were living, tangible men.

Men of the deadliest kind.

Tywin required her, _them_, to read about their enemies. Each variety. They had spent endless hours in thick tomes and brittle scrolls acquainting themselves with hairless warriors and horse armies, each whose only purpose it seemed was to breathe and fight and die.

It was something else altogether seeing those words and descriptions come to life, and she was only glad she had been prepared.

The Unsullied, she found, moved like a hive. Even in pairs there was no conversation, only mirrored actions and fluid movements. But in watching them, Sansa also saw individuality. For some, their eyes were dead and bottomless, but for others, there was a spark - a glint of life amidst the rigid mechanism of their day-to-day existence.

And mayhaps, she thought, that spark of life beyond the hive was a gift from their Queen.

Whatever their cause, the actions of the silent sentries were effective - marching over the drone to regain order.

"And who are you to think to petition for your brother?"

"I am no one, Your Grace, it is Ser Brynden Tully who is petitioning for my brother Rickon. I am simply assuring you the West will remain compliant."

"You will remove yourself from those negotiations?"

"If that is your desire, Your Grace, I would only ask to speak as Regent in the West to renegotiate terms of restitution and current finance with the North, as my duty requires."

"You would give up the North?"

"I gave it up the moment I left it, the moment I was betrothed to Joffrey Baratheon."

"You mean _Lannister_, a product of incest."

Sansa did not speak a word, instead she raised a brow the barest of fractions on her serious face, the best imitation of her husband she could afford, and waited for the Queen to move forward - allowing the silence between them to acknowledge the Targaryen's hypocrisy, her own familial lineage.

"You then married Lord Tywin," the Queen continued with an air of agitation.

"I was married _to_ Lord Tywin as a political maneuver against my brother, as a means to end a war."

"And heirs, which you gave. Two sons, correct?"

Sansa chewed back her instinct to protect, never shifting in her calm seriousness.

"Eventually."

The Queen looked to both her Hand and her Lord Commander; addressing Sansa in question, "Explain."

Lady Sansa took a moment. She looked to be gathering herself, strength and otherwise.

"My first child was lost, Your Grace," she said baldly, her eyes leveled and her expression only slightly pinched in the pain of a loss that never seemed to fade.

The Queen faltered. It was nothing overt, a sadness in her countenance, purely subtle, but it was one of the many things Sansa was looking for; therefore, it did not go unnoticed.

"The second instance, my sons were born..."

Sansa trailed away; with the words, her view strayed to ever familiar points within the room they occupied. Her voice was rough with an emotion belying the sternness of her face. Her eyes widened for only for a small beat before reeling everything back in.

"As your Hand can attest, Your Grace," Lady Lannister now spoke in a manner of detachment, something clinical, "My pregnancies were not forced. I was not bred."

The Queen looked down from her place upon the throne. A place and implement that had only meant loss for Sansa, and - she supposed - _that _particular tide would never turn.

However, she did feel bereft - an empty calm.

Perhaps it was second nature, unlocked by the chamber itself, to hold such a placidity under scrutiny by the occupant of that chair. Like Joffrey before, and like Cersei as well, this new royalty owned nothing of her - could take nothing from her.

Sansa had paid her due to the Iron Throne; she owed no more. And while her duty would not allow her fealty to waver or her word to the crown and the terms they had negotiated be anything save honoured, her soul would _never_ be bound again.

"The heirs of Tywin Lannister were summoned along with you, why are they not here?"

The voice of the Queen cut through Sansa's lament, though it did nothing to jar her mettle.

"They had been sent to safety prior to your arrival, Your Grace."

"Send for them." It was an order that sounded bitter.

"My apologies, Your Grace, but I will not willfully submit my children to danger."

Lady Lannister heard the familiar subtle shift and flex of the four brave knights who would fight to their own deaths for the preservation of her life and dignity. With them was the new noise, no less subtle, of a large dangerous man, _her_ large dangerous man, adjusting his stance to accommodate whatever the Dragon Queen decided to act upon.

Queen Daenerys went on.

"I could just as easily execute _you_, if that is your preference."

"It is."

Sansa said those two words without hesitation and with more than a hint of anger.

The quiet in the room was uneasy. The shifting, fidgeting noise of men and women either moving away from, or vying for a closer position to, what was slowly becoming a prelude to carnage, seemed loud around them.

There was a feral quality to this Queen, Sansa noted. Whereas Cersei was vicious and Margaery was calculated, each was blatant. Queen Daenerys though, she was wild under her skin of royalty - baseborn compassion with an edge of highborn cruelty.

The Queen reminded Sansa of her own sister. All roughened defiance and passionate righteousness, mostly blind to the important details that require patience.

"He called for you, my lady. Your _great_ lion wept and cried for you like babe for its mother."

"I expect he would, Your Grace," Sansa said unperturbed.

"He does this often, then?"

Ignoring the titters and laughter-adjusted-to-coughs, Lady Lannister addressed her new queen with every scrap of courtly decorum belonging to her.

"No, Your Grace, I have never witnessed that in my husband. I only know that when _I_ was tortured for the entertainment of regency, I also cried out for those close to me."

It was then Sansa realized what she was missing: fear. She did not have it when Tywin first told her of the impending invasion, she did not have it when he left, and she did not have it when the Tyrell betrayal was revealed. She held fury and confusion and hurt, but not fear.

Her lord husband taught her that fear was useless. There were better instincts to trust in for guidance; that fear, although the antithesis of dreams and wishes, was as equally crippling.

Sansa did not believe him then, thinking only fools never obliged their fear. But here she was, fearless in the face of yet another queen who would think her better if she were dead.

"Lord Tywin will die."

"I am aware, Your Grace." Her voice was not lifeless, nor was it quaking. It was plainly neutral.

_Keep them guessing_.

Queen Daenerys tilted her head; a minute adjustment of angle, a tiny smoothing of blatant hate. The lady before her was a mystery. Strong, yet refined. Open, yet cunning.

"Then why else are you here?" Dany asked blandly.

"On behalf of Lord Tyrion, Your Grace."

There was a stifled coughed from the half-man situated beside his Queen; a look on his face both begging for restraint, and offering shrewd approval.

"Tyrion is no lord," the Queen said, almost preoccupied.

"No, Your Grace, but he should be-"

"He won't be."

Sansa closed her eyes then, breathed deep the stale air she never for a day missed, and opened them once more. She looked upon her Queen without the mask that shielded her from the world around her, without a stitch of reproach.

This was her honesty; this was her offer of love and protection.

_All of them_.

"Please value him, Your Grace." Her voice chose that moment to finally waver, as her eyes threatened to betray her. Sansa cleared her throat lightly and spoke reverently, "Please treat him as the treasure his father refused to see."

Tyrion wore a look of such admiration, Sansa had to quickly retreat behind her armour lest she be caught in tears. And though she now looked stony, Tyrion refused to hide his caring affection toward his mother.

When Sansa returned her attention to the Queen, what struck her was the young woman's smile. It was barely there, yet it changed her entirely. The severity of Queen Daenerys was brushed away but her outward demeanour was not overly amiable either. She seemed settled. Whether in position or decision, Sansa did not know, but it was definitive in its portrayal.

"Lady Lannister, you are welcomed in your stay. For the duration and to the conclusion of our business."

The Queen's words did not hold the malice they did earlier. Like that of her countenance, the pitch of her inflection seemed to have calmed in some sort of acceptance.

There was one last appeal Sansa had to make.

"Your Grace, I thank you. Though, I must ask-"

She was ended with the raise of the Queen's hand. Her palm-out gesture an ingrained prompt to cease and listen.

"You will see him," Targaryen violet hardened a fraction in their lock on Tully blue, "Just before his end. Not prior."

It was with some effort Sansa swallowed the cusp of grief before it was an evident physicality; yet devoured it she did.

Officials and their court had no right to her sorrow and gloom. It was hers alone, and Sansa would never publicly display that part of her again.

The Lady of Casterly Rock stood and bowed; her flawless curtsy part of her old-found gentility toward her new-found monarch.

As she turned to leave - Sandor at her lead, two knights at her side, two at her back - Sansa knew she should be gratified and comforted in the knowledge that her brother would be seated rightfully in the North, the end of the Stark line to define a new beginning; that her children would not be denied their succession, nor their name or freedom - another new beginning.

But it was the long sharp needles of melancholy piercing her breast bone, gifting her with agony for every jostle of movement - be it by breathing or walking - that encouraged her to tread fast and seek the solitude of her rooms.

She would see him.

..._she would see him_.

And that particular happiness tore through her heart with the hurt of it.

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** A huge thank you to my beta, content developer, researcher, sounding-board, and internet life-partner: dealbreaker19 **

_(Any mistakes are mine alone. I tend to fiddle and tweak - up to posting)_


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